Biography

At the age of twenty, the young Kurogiku falls in love with a woman whom he has only glimpsed and leaves Japan to find her. Arriving in Tuscany, he settled in an isolated ruin where he lived for forty years as a hermit, devoted to the art of washi, a Japanese craft paper in which he folded origami. One day, Casparo, a young watchmaker, arrives at Kurogiku, become Mr Origami. He plans to manufacture a complex watch with all the time measurements available. His arrival overturns Mr Origami's apparent tranquillity and confronts him with his past. The two men will come out transformed from this meeting.

This novel, of an extreme sobriety, combines depth and lightness, philosophy and silence. It makes you see what is not shown, hear what is not spoken. With perfect documentary precision, it has the intensity of a tale, the beauty of an origami.