TEHRAN – Japanese writer Natsuko Imamura’s bestselling novel “The Woman in the Purple Skirt” has been published in Persian.

Pegah Khodadi is the translator of the book published by Daniar in Tehran.

An English translation of the novel by Lucy North was published by Penguin Books in June 2021. The book was first published in 2019.

“The Woman in the Purple Skirt” is a novel of obsession and psychological intrigue about two enigmatic unmarried women, one of whom manipulates the other from afar, by one of Japan’s most acclaimed young writers.

Almost every day, the Woman in the Purple Skirt buys a single cream bun and goes to the park, where she sits on a bench to eat it as the local children taunt her.

She is observed at all times by the undetected narrator, the Woman in the Yellow Cardigan. From a distance, the Woman in the Purple Skirt looks like a schoolgirl, but there are age spots on her face, and her hair is dry and stiff. 

Like the Woman in the Yellow Cardigan, she is single, she lives in a small, run-down apartment, and she is short on money. The Woman in the Yellow Cardigan lures her to a job where she herself works, as a hotel housekeeper; soon the Woman in the Purple Skirt is having an affair with the boss. 

Unfortunately, no one knows or cares about the Woman in the Yellow Cardigan. That’s the difference between her and the Woman in the Purple Skirt.

Studiously deadpan, highly original and unsettling, “The Woman in the Purple Skirt” explores the dynamics of envy, the mechanisms of power in the workplace, and the vulnerability of unmarried women in a taut, voyeuristic narrative about the sometimes desperate desire to be seen.

Photo: Front cover of the Persian edition of Natsuko Imamura’s novel “The Woman in the Purple Skirt”.

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