![]() ![]() The characters learn, though, that even though people don’t return to a changed present, they return “with a changed heart.” Kawaguchi’s tender look at the beauty of passing things, adapted from one of his plays, makes for an affecting, deeply immersive journey into the desire to hold onto the past. ![]() It has a slow pace, that gives time to the characters and their situations. What would you change if you could go back in time In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a caf which has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more. Kawaguchi’s characters embark on lo-fi, emotional journeys unburdened by the technicalities often found in time travel fiction-notably, they are unable to change the present. However, Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s poignant debut novel Before the coffee gets cold (first published in 2015 and translated to English in 2019) uses the familiar techniques of magic realism. A gentle book that addresses serious topics side on. In “Husband and Wife,” a nurse goes back in time to visit her husband before his Alzheimer’s erased her from his memory in “The Sisters,” a woman visits her younger sister, who died in an accident while trying to visit her, to apologize for not seeing her. ![]() In four connected tales, lovers and family members take turns sitting in the chair that allows a person to travel back in time for only as long as it takes a single cup of coffee to cool. 100 would recommend A very wholesome and heartwarming book which I could easily read in one sitting if I had the time. Japanese playwright Kawaguchi’s evocative English-language debut is set in a tiny Tokyo café where time travel is possible. ![]()
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