A tale of passion and romance between a Japanese schoolteacher and a doglike man, from the prize-winning author of The Last Children of Tokyo

Mitsuko, a schoolteacher at the Kitamura school, inspires both rumour and curiosity in the parents of her students because of her unconventional manner - not least when she tells the children the fable of a princess whose hand in marriage is promised to a dog she is intimate with. And when a young man with sharp canine teeth turns up at the schoolteache...

Hiruko, from the now vanished archipelago ‘somewhere between China and Polynesia’, and her companions have searched in vain for someone who speaks her native language. They finally track down a sushi chef from the same nation, but he has apparently lost the power of speech. If Hiruko is ever to hear her mother tongue again, a sceptical aphasia specialist is her last hope.