Iwaki Kei was born in Osaka. After graduating from college, she went to Australia to study English and ended up staying on, working as a Japanese tutor, an office clerk, and a translator of product manuals before marrying another Japanese expatriate. The country has now been her home for 20 years and counting. Farewell, My Orange, her debut novel, won both the Dazai Osamu Prize and the Ōe Kenzaburō Prize.
Japan
Iwaki Kei
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Latest reviews
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In Iwaki Kei’s award-winning debut novel, two women who have recently moved to Australia from Nigeria and Japan meet in an ESL class. As immigrants, non-English speakers, and mothers, they face seemingly insurmountable challenges just to adapt to their new environments. The...— Electric Lit, Jun 24 2019![]()
An admirable tale about the hardships and challenges of the immigrant experience manages to be engaging yet determinedly unsentimental— Financial Times, Dec 15 2018![]()
Kei’s intense and impressive debut is the story of two women who bond in their adopted country of Australia, discovering the power of language, friendship, and family. Anchoring the narrative is the heartbreaking struggle of Nigerian refugee Salimah, who is abandoned in a small...— Publishers Weekly (starred review), Sep 26 2018
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