Mina's matchbox : a novel / Yoko Ogawa ; translated from the Japanese by Stephen Snyder.

"Originally published in serialized form in Japan as Mina no Koshin by Yomiuri Shimbun in 2005. Originally published in paperback in Japan as Mina no Koshin by Chuokoron- Shinsha, Inc., Tokyo, in 2006"--Copyright page.

"In the spring of 1972, twelve-year-old Tomoko leaves her mother behind in Tokyo and boards a train alone for Ashiya, a coastal town in Japan, to stay with her aunt's family. Tomoko's aunt is an enigma and an outlier in her working-class family, and her magnificent home--and handsome, foreign husband, the president of a soft drink company--are symbols of that status ... The family is just as beguiling as their mansion--Tomoko's dignified and devoted aunt, her German grandmother, and her dashing, charming uncle who confidently sits as the family's patriarch. At the center of the family is Tomoko's cousin Mina, a precocious, asthmatic girl of thirteen who draws Tomoko into an intoxicating world full of secret crushes and elaborate storytelling. In this elegant jewel box of a book, Yoko Ogawa invites us to witness a powerful and formative interlude in Tomoko's life, which she looks back on briefly from adulthood at the novel's end"-- Provided by publisher.

Translated from the Japanese.