ARCHIVED ONLINE EVENT - The Japan Society Book Club: Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

Date
Monday 8 January 2024
Time
7.00pm (GMT)
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Booking Details
Online meeting on Zoom
Please register for the meeting in advance from the link below. After registering, you will receive a automated confirmation email with meeting access details (please check your spam folder if you don't receive any emails).

Free for members of The Japan Society

Book available from Bookshop.org, Amazon, and Waterstones (translated by Geoffrey Trousselot)
Japanese version available here

Please help us to keep this event free and open to all! The activities of The Japan Society are made possible thanks to the support of its members. If you are planning to attend this event and are not a member (as an individual or through your employer), please consider becoming a member or making a donation if you can - the recommended donation is £5. Thank you!

In a small back alley in Tokyo, a cafe which has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time!

We meet four visitors to the cafe, each hoping to make use of the time-travelling offer, in order to: confront the man who left them, receive a letter from their husband whose memory has been taken by Alzheimer's, see their sister one last time, and meet the daughter they never got the chance to know.

But the journey into the past does not come without risks: customers must sit in a particular seat, they cannot leave the cafe, and finally, they must return to the present before the coffee gets cold…

Toshikazu Kawaguchi was born in Osaka in 1971. He formerly produced, directed and wrote for the theatrical group Sonic Snail. As a playwright, his works include COUPLE, Sunset Song, and Family Time. The novel Before the Coffee Gets Cold is adapted from a play by Kawaguchi, which won the 10th Suginami Drama Festival grand prize. The novel has become an international bestseller and has been adapted for the screen in Japan.

If you have any questions, please call The Japan Society office on 020 3075 1996 or email events@japansociety.org.uk.