A Tale for the Time Being | CBC Books - Action News
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A Tale for the Time Being

Part mystery, part meditation, Ruth Ozeki's novel brings together the lives of these three women, and deals with themes ranging from bullying to Zen Buddhism.

Ruth Ozeki

Ruth, a novelist living on an island off the coast of British Columbia, discovers a Hello Kitty lunchbox washed up on the shore. It's filled with the remnants of a diary written by Nao, a 16-year-old growing up in Japan. Nao is a lonely girl intent on ending it all but not before she writes the biography of her great-grandmother. Part mystery, part meditation,A Tale for the Time Beingbrings together the lives of these three women, and deals with themes ranging from bullying to Zen Buddhism.

A Tale for the Time Beingwas shortlisted for the 2013 Man Booker Prize.

Read an excerpt | Author interviews

From the book

Hi!

My name is Nao, and I am a time being. Do you know what a time being is? Well, if you give me a moment, I will tell you.

A time being is someone who lives in time, and that means you, and me, and every one of us who is, or was, or ever will be. As for me, right now I am sitting in a French maid caf in Akiba Electricity Town, listening to a sad chanson that is playing sometime in your past, which is also my present, writing this and wondering about you, somewhere in my future. And if you're reading this, then maybe by now you're wondering about me, too.


FromA Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki 2013. Published by Penguin Canada.

Author interviews

Man Booker contender Ruth Ozeki

11 years ago
Duration 5:04
Canadian-American author on CanLit successes, being a Booker nominee and putting her life into A Tale for the Time Being.
Shelagh's extended conversation.