Originally published in Japan in the early 1980s, Talk to My Back at long last makes its English language debut courtesy of Ryan Holmberg's translation.  The 35 linked stories that make up this volume provide intimate vignettes of a wife and mother's lot in Japan: the isolating experience of caring for children, waiting for the husband, a salaryman who is out all hours and rarely home, with all depending on her for their needs and well being.  The initial publication of these short works – first in Garo, and later collected in book form – opened up this private world to manga readers and marked an important expansion of manga's representational and expressive range.

Includes a 40-page essay by Holmberg, which will aid readers in contextualizing and appreciating this important work.

Second Hand Love is the follow up volume to last year's Talk to My Back.  The two pieces collected here are prime Yamada Murasaki from the 1980s.  They provided – and continue to provide – the much needed women's perspective in a field that was still almost completely occupied by men.  The lead off, "A Blue Flame" is really a graphic novella (and was in fact later adapted to a live action feature film, titled Bed-In, in 1986, that tells the story of a complicated adult romance.  Then there is the title story, which really zooms in on the woman's point of view of traditional gender roles in Japanese relationships. The last piece is a set of thirty-one half page illustrations executed for the novel A Loving Family by Mita Masahiro for it's orignal serialization in the Yomuri Newspaper.

There is also an interview with cum essay by  Yamada Murasaki, conducted in February of 1985, not long after the conclusion of the serialization of "A Blue Flame."

softcover  |  236 pages  |  black & white with some color

Edited and Translated by Ryan Holmberg.