Mitchell, David

The thousand autumns of Jacob De Zoet : a novel / David Mitchell - 1st ed - New York : Random House , c2010. - 479 p. ; 25 cm.

The year is 1799, the place Dejima in Nagasaki Harbor, the "high-walled,fan-shaped artificial island" that is the Japanese Empire's single port and sole window onto the world, designed to keep the West at bay; the farthest outpost of the war-ravaged Dutch East Indies Company; and a de facto prison for the dozen foreigners permitted to live and work there. To this place of devious merchants, deceitful interpreters, costly courtesans, earthquakes, and typhoons comes Jacob de Zoet, a devout and resourceful young clerk who has five years in the East to earn a fortune of sufficient size to win the hand of his wealthy fiance a cute; back in Holland. But Jacob's original intentions are eclipsed after a chance encounter with Orito Aibagawa, the disfigured daughter of a samurai doctor and midwife to the city's powerful magistrate. The borders between propriety, profit, and pleasure blur until Jacob finds his vision clouded, one rash promise made and then fatefully broken. The consequences will extend beyond Jacob's worst imaginings.

9781400065455

2009047296


East and west----Fiction
Trading posts----Fiction


Deshima (Nagasaki-shi, Japan)----Fiction
Japan----History----1787-1868----Fiction


Historical fiction

PR6063.I785 / T47 2010

FIC MIT