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Fiction General

The Printmaker's Daughter

A Novel

by (author) Katherine Govier

Publisher
HarperCollins
Initial publish date
Nov 2011
Category
General, Literary, Historical
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780062000361
    Publish Date
    Nov 2011
    List Price
    $14.99 USD
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9780062100689
    Publish Date
    Nov 2011
    List Price
    $13.99 USD

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Description

A lost voice of old Japan reclaims her rightful place inhistory in this breathtaking work of imagination and scholarship from award-winning and internationally acclaimedauthor Katherine Govier. In the evocative taleof 19th century Tokyo, The Printmaker’sDaughter  delivers an enthrallingtale of one of the world’s great unknown artists: Oei,the mysterious daughter of master printmaker Hokusai, painter of the Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji. In a novel that willresonate with readers of Tracy Chevalier’s Girlwith a Pearl Earring, Lisa See’s SnowFlower and the Secret Fan, and David Mitchell’s The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet,the sights and sensations of an exotic, bygone era form the richly captivatingbackdrop for an intimate, finely wrought story of daughterhood and duty, artand authorship, the immortality of creation and the anonymity of history.

About the author

KATHERINE GOVIER’s most recent novel, The Ghost Brush, is about the daughter of the famous Japanese printmaker Hokusai. It was published in the United States as The Printmaker’s Daughter, and in translation in Romania, Spain, Quebec and Japan. Katherine’s novel Creation, about John James Audubon in Labrador, was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year in 2003. She won Canada's Marian Engel Award for a woman writer (1997) and the Toronto Book Award (1992). She has twice been shortlisted for Ontario’s Trillium prize. The author of twelve books, Katherine has been instrumental in establishing two innovative writing programs, Writers in Electronic Residence and The Shoe Project, which works to improve the written and spoken English of immigrant women. Katherine travels between Toronto and Canmore, Alberta, in the Rocky Mountains.

Web: www.govier.com

Facebook: KatherineGovierWrites

Twitter: @kmgovier

Katherine Govier's profile page

Editorial Reviews

“Lavishly researched and brilliant. . . . Govier astonishes throughout in her ability to write epic themes intimately, particularly in the lyrical, absorbing, and intense final hundred pages.”

<em>Publishers Weekly</em> <strong>(starred review)</strong>

“Katherine Govier reimagines the overlooked artist in this historically rich tale, based on a true story and crafted with vivid imagery.”

<em>Marie Claire</em>

“Govier’s expansive historical novel turns the spotlight on Oei, the “ghost brush” attributed to some of her father’s famous prints, and a character that drives a compulsively readable novel.”

Globe and Mail (Toronto)

“From the hothouse ferment of art studios, bordellos, and Kabuki theater to the tonic countryside, Govier’s spectacularly detailed, eventful, and emotionally stormy novel is populated by vivid characters and charged with searing insights into Japanese history and the diabolically difficult lives of women and artists.”

<em>Booklist </em><strong>(starred review)</strong>

“If you read one novel this year by a writer you may be unfamiliar with, read THE PRINTMAKER’S DAUGHTER by Katherine Govier; even if you are familiar with Ms. Govier’s novels, this one is unmatched literary fiction.”

<em>New York Journal of Books</em>

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