Bit Parts

As a first novel, "Bit Parts" is overwhelmingly powerful reading. Suddenly alone, and pregnant, the reality of her surroundings and circumstances forces Kate to pick up the shattered parts of her personality. Always accepting what life has dished out to her - a broken home, travel, marriage to and divorce from a Japanese - now the senselessness of her alienation is a reality.

Set in Japan and written as a series of letters, "Bit Parts" is centred around the breakdown of human communication in an age of mass communication. Ann Nakano looks at what one can do with the fractured images, broken dreams, and fragments of such a life. Disintegration of the family unit, the decline of the Church as a source of spiritual hope, birth control and abortion, and the worldwide fear of nuclear warfare are all interwoven into this complex and compelling novel.

Ann Nakano was born in Buckinghamshire, England in 1950 and brought up in Derby. She has lived in Japan for the past ten years and was formerly a staff writer for the Mainichi Daily News. Ann Nakano now freelances for numerous magazines and newspapers in different parts of the world. She has also lived in Europe and Australia and has travelled extensively in the Pacific and the Far East.