Natsuo Kirino's 'Grotesque' New Novel

Fresh Air | By Maureen Corrigan

Published March 20, 2007 at 11:00 AM EDT

Celebrated Japanese crime writer Natsuo Kirino made her American debut in 2005, when the novel Out was translated into English, and became a finalist for an Edgar award.

Out told the weird story of an abused wife who strangles her husband and then seeks the aid of her coworkers in a boxed lunch factory in covering up the murder. The novel was a sensation not simply because it lured American readers out of the tourist precincts of Japan, but because of its distinctive worldview and tone.

Another Kirino novel, Grotesque, has just been translated into English.

Maureen Corrigan

Maureen Corrigan, book critic for NPR's Fresh Air, is The Nicky and Jamie Grant Distinguished Professor of the Practice in Literary Criticism at Georgetown University. She is an associate editor of and contributor to Mystery and Suspense Writers (Scribner) and the winner of the 1999 Edgar Award for Criticism, presented by the Mystery Writers of America. In 2019, Corrigan was awarded the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing by the National Book Critics Circle.

See stories by Maureen Corrigan

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