Murderers and mourners, mothers and children, lovers and innocent bystanders – locked in the embrace of an ominous and darkly beautiful web, their fates all converge through the eleven stories here in Yoko Ogawa’s Revenge. As tales of the macabre pass from character to character – an aspiring writer, a successful surgeon, a cabaret singer, a lonely craftsman – Ogawa provides us with a slice of life that is resplendent in its chaos, enthralling in its passion and chilling in its cruelty. Translated by Stephen Snyder