What You Are Looking For Is in the Library

Michiko Aoyama’s novel What You Are Looking For Is in the Library is a work of contemporary Japanese fiction and Aoyama’s debut adult novel. She previously wrote for a Japanese newspaper based in Sydney, Australia, and published a children’s series in Japanese following the life of a young girl named Mimi. What You Are Looking For Is in the Library is organized into five chapters, each of which presents the first-person narrative of a primary character. Over the course of the novel, narrative, formal, and thematic connections emerge between the chapters and the characters’ seemingly disparate storylines. Tomoka Fujiki, Ryo Urase, Natsumi Sakitani, Hiroya Suda, and Masao Gonno all live in Tokyo, Japan in the same municipal ward, and they all feel isolated and alone. Once the characters find their way to the Hatori Community House, they make connections with the librarian, Sayuri Komachi. Komachi gives them book recommendations and handmade gifts that help them rethink their circumstances. The characters’ experiences inspire the novel’s thematic explorations of the