Indie Press Reading Group

The Indie Press Reading Group series aims to spotlight experimental and exciting new novels from some of the most prolific UK independent publishers. In June, the spotlight will be on Granta Books.

We'll discuss The Third Love by one of the 2025 International Booker Prize shortlistees, Hiromi Kawakami. This translated novel moves between Japan's past and present to tell a time-bending story of desire and destiny.

Having married her childhood sweetheart, Riko is trapped in a relationship soured by infidelity. She runs into her old friend Mr Takaoka who offers friendship and an unusual escape and teaches her how to live inside her dreams. So, each night, Riko sinks into other lives - first as a high-ranking 17th-century courtesan, then, as a serving lady to a late Middle Ages princess. As she experiences desire and heartbreak from past worlds, she is forced to reckon with her life as a 21st-century wife, mother and lover. After loving her husband and Mr Takaoka, will she ever be ready for her third great love?

Hiromi Kawakami is an award-winning Japanese writer, whose fiction includes Strange Weather in Tokyo, The Nakano Thrift Shop, The Ten Loves of Mr Nishino and People From My Neighbourhood.

Ted Goossen is Professor Emeritus of Japanese Literature at York University in Toronto and has translated many writers including Haruki Murakami.