The Kimono Tattoo
About this audiobook
American translator Ruth Bennett peels back layers of haunting secrets in a revered kimono dynasty.
“I jostled her shoulder and noticed when I did that her skin was cold to the touch, her entire torso was covered in tattoos of kimono motifs.”
This ghastly scene was the last thing Ruth Bennett expected to encounter when she agreed to translate a novel by a long-forgotten Japanese writer. Returning to her childhood home in Kyoto had promised safety and solitude, but Ruth soon finds the storyline in the novel leaking into her everyday life. Fictional characters turn out to be frighteningly real. Using her intimate knowledge of both kimono and Kyoto, Ruth must confront a vicious killer along with her own painful family secrets.
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About the author
Rebecca Copeland is a writer of fiction and literary criticism and a translator of Japanese literature. Her stories travel between Japan and the American South and touch on questions of identity, belonging, and self-discovery. Her translation of Kirino Natsuo’s The Goddess Chronicle won the PEN Translates Award, English PEN in 2013, and the Japan-US Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature, 2014–2015. After earning a PhD in Japanese literature at Columbia University, Copeland is now a professor at Washington University in St. Louis.
Theresa Bakken draws on her experience as an Emmy Award–winning broadcast journalist to bring empathy to every character, and professionalism to every project. In addition to audiobook narration, she produces and hosts the Desideratum podcast celebrating authors and featuring their work.
