Fear and Trembling

"Fear and Trembling" tells the story of Amélie, a young Westernwoman with talent, energy, and proficiency in the Japanese language, who has undertaken to spend a year working in a Japanese corporation -- at the bottom of the ladder. She soon learns that in the Japanese corporate culture hierarchy means everything. Follow orders and you survive; show initiative and you don't.The luckless Amé lie makes the mistake of, first, showing initiative, and, second, deigning to show sympathy for her immediate superior, the beautiful, efficient, and ice-cold Miss Mori. What follows is a processof ritual humiliation. Amé lie is forced to do a series of mind-numbing, repetitive tasks -- and worse; her life at the Yumimoto Corporationspirals inexorably downward. And yet what she learns about herself andher colleagues in this brilliant novel will alternately amuse, outrage, and move readers.

Not since Marguerite Duras' "The Lover" has a novel so indeliblymarked the differences between East and West, nor done so with suchseductive charm, honesty, and humor. "Fear and Trembling" is anovel about a clash of cultures, and the process of self-discovery itbegets.

Cover design by Steve Snider
Fan illustration by Philip Pascuzzo