![]() ![]() It tells of a bag maker, a man who takes pride in crafting "any kind of bag a customer wants: bags for artificial limbs, bedpans, rifles, eggs, dentures." One day, a woman - a nightclub singer, it turns out - enters his shop with an especially unusual request: "I would like you to make a bag to hold a heart." What self-respecting artisan could turn down such an offer? He accepts, naturally, lovingly assembling a "lustrous" leather bag for the woman, who "was born with her heart outside her chest." In due time, the man's own heart is broken. "Sewing for the Heart" is one of the standouts. The stories are loosely interconnected, and they gain strength over time: One dreads what comes next but can't help craving it. Equally seductive and unsettling, these tales overwhelm the reader with sinister dreamscapes, each exquisitely rendered in cool, precise prose that has been rightfully compared to that of fellow Japanese author Haruki Murakami. "Welcome to the Museum of Torture" is the title of one of the stories in Yoko Ogawa's slim new collection, "Revenge," but it aptly describes the book as a whole. By Yoko Ogawa translated from the Japanese by Stephen Snyder (Picador 162 pages $14 paperback) ![]()
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