The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

The year is 1799, the place Dejima in Nagasaki Harbor, the Japanese Empirers"s single port and sole window onto the world, designed to keep the West at bay. To this place of devious merchants, deceitful interpreters, and costly courtesans comes Jacob de Zoet, a devout young clerk who has five years in the East to earn a fortune of sufficient size to win the hand of his wealthy fianceacute;e back in Holland. But Jacobrs"s original intentions are eclipsed after a chance encounter with Orito Aibagawa, the disfigured midwife to the cityrs"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 of which will extend beyond Jacobrs"s worst imaginings.

David Mitchell is the award-winning and bestselling author of The Bone Clocks, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, Black Swan Green, Cloud Atlas, Number9Dream, and Ghostwritten. Twice shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, Mitchell was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time in 2007. With KA Yoshida, Mitchell translated from the Japanese the internationally bestselling memoir The Reason I Jump. He lives in Ireland with his wife and two children.