The opening pages of Akira Otani’s blistering 2020 bestseller, “The Night of Baba Yaga,” immediately contradict the reader’s expectations.
In the backseat of a white sedan, a young red-haired woman, kidnapped by a group of Japanese yakuza, flutters in and out of consciousness. Only these gangsters are not cold, hardened gangsters. These men are tense, vulnerable and wary; as bouncy as their loud, colorful ties. But it’s when the car stops and the woman is dumped to the ground that expectations really realign. Because in Otani’s skilled hands, this woman is no victim either, helpless resourceful. She is Yoriko Shindo, fearless and unwilling to compromise. Shindo loves violence and excels at it. Despite her weakened state, she will not allow herself to be subdued by the horde of white-shirted henchmen who rush in to subdue her, physically overwhelming them all. Yet she eventually agrees by refusing to kill the attack dog they unleash on her.
The Night of Baba Yaga, by Akira Otani. Translated by Sam Bett. 216 pages, Soho Press, Fiction.
