Aki / Original Title: AUTUMN (CREST)

[Machine Translation] Unaware of the referendum vote to leave the European Union, 101-year-old Daniel is sleeping in a convalescent home in a village in England. Elisabeth, a 32-year-old part-time teacher, visits him frequently, talks to him, and reads to him. Daniel was her neighbor in the house where she spent her childhood. He was an old man at the time, but he would often tell Elisabeth about poetry, novels, theater, music, and paintings, and would always ask her, "What are you reading? What are you reading? The conflict between Elisabeth and her mother, Daniel's unsuccessful love affair with a female pop artist who died prematurely in the 1960s, and his sister who was apparently taken by the Nazis... Elisabeth's life was in a state of flux, and she was still in the midst of a war that was to last for decades. A Booker Prize finalist that depicts an England exposed to unprecedented divisions and the lives of those whose lives continue to transcend the changes of the times.

国民投票でEU離脱が決まったことも知らず、101歳のダニエルは、イギリスのとある村の療養施設で眠りつづけている。足しげく彼を見舞い、語りかけ、本を読んできかせるエリサベスは32歳の非常勤講師。少女時代を過ごした家の隣人がダニエルだった。当時すでに老人だった彼は、エリサベスに詩や小説、舞台や音楽、絵画の魅力を折りにふれ伝え、いつもこう訊ねた。「何を読んでいるのかな?」―エリサベスと母との確執、60年代に早世した女性ポップアーティストとダニエルのかなわなかった恋、ナチの手にわたったらしい彼の妹...。かつてない分断にさらされるイギリスと、時代の変転を越えてつづいてゆく人々の人生を描いたブッカー賞最終候補作。