Original title:
三千円の使いかた
Original language:
Japanese
Publication info:
Chuokoron-Shinsha
18 April 2018
300 pages
Genre:
Upmarket commercial fiction
Rights handled by New River:
Foreign rights outside Asia
Rights sold:
Germany (dtv)
Italy (Garzanti)
Korea (Munhakdongne)
The Netherlands (Ambo|Anthos)
Russia (Sindbad)
Spain (Duomo)
UK & Comm (Scribner UK)
How to Use 3000 Yen
by Hika Harada
A bestselling book in Japan since August 2021
750,000 copies sold
'A person's life is determined by how this person uses 3000 yen.' So was the teaching Miho Mikuriya received from her grandma Kotoko in her childhood. 24 years old, Miho works in a company that seems to care about the employees' welfare. But a colleague's loss of job due to illness, and her boyfriend's opinion that a woman should not take her job seriously make her re-think what she really wants for life. Kotoko is 73 years old, widowed with good savings. Yet, with prolonged longevity and increased healthcare fees, she is considering taking on a part-time job; Miho's sister Maho is married with a daughter. She is obsessed with saving money. Yet, a friend's extravagant engagement ring destabilises her faith in daily moneysaving. Miho and Maho's mother, Tomoko, returns home from a chemotherapy session for cancer. Yet, her husband has changed little: he still expects her to do all the housework. When Tomoko learns that a friend has divorced her husband of more than 30 years, will she do the same?
A non-fiction self-help sounding, How to Use 3000 Yen is, in effect, a thought-provoking fiction about four women of three generations in an ordinary Japanese family without shunning the topic of money. It portrays modern Japanese women and their struggle and strength in life's different stages. It is not only relatable to anyone who juggles between money, freedom, and happiness, but also pushing us to re-think what life really means in this world of uncertainties.
About the author
Hika Harada was born in Kanagawa Prefecture in 1970. She received the Subaru Literary Prize for The Tea Time That Never Comes. Her works include Her Household Account Book, Lunch Wine, Why the Parcel From my Mum is so Lame. Her novel How to Use 3000 Yen has been a bestseller in Japan for more than a year. Her new book, The Secondhand Bookstore Diner, is a novel about human connections brought about by food and books set in a small second-hand bookshop in Jimbocho.