Negative Space

A surreal and unsettling Japanese feminist body horror novella about 2 sisters who cannot escape their pasts, from the award-winning author of Nails and Eyes.

Emi is a university student living a quiet, private life, largely withdrawn from the world. But her peaceful life is disrupted when her estranged younger sister shows up at her university flat.

Her sibling quickly establishes herself while Emi moves to the cramped loft upstairs, where she can keep an eye on the other girl’s movements. Her sister never used to be so strange. She refuses even to acknowledge Emi, and the pair cohabit in stony silence. As the unspoken hostility between them festers, Emi’s old skin condition returns, much worse than before, as big flakes of her skin harden and fall off. As she watches her sister slip straight into a regular life—Emi’s regular life—Emi finds herself struggling to hold onto her sister before she disappears entirely.

From the celebrated Japanese horror author of Nail and Eyes, this mind-bendingly surreal novella offers brooding atmosphere and cloying tension that builds to a shockingly skin-crawling twist. Known for rewriting genre expectations from a feminist slant, Kaori Fujino delivers an unnerving tale of body horror and characters who are not as they seem, perfect for fans of Samanta Schweblin and Bora Chung.

This edition also includes a bonus story "Burnt Offerings": an unsettling tale of a woman’s bizarre experiences with two creatures in a little-visited corner of an art museum.