The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa
He is a brilliant maths professor with a peculiar problem - ever since a traumatic head injury some seventeen years ago, he has lived with only eighty minutes of short-term memory.
She is a sensitive but astute young housekeeper with a ten-year-old son, who is entrusted to take care of him.
Each morning, as the Professor and the Housekeeper are reintroduced to one another, a strange, beautiful relationship blossoms between them. The Professor may not remember what he had for breakfast, but his mind is still alive with elegant equations from the past. He devises clever maths riddles - based on her shoe size or her birthday - and the numbers, in all of their articulate order, reveal a sheltering and poetic world to both the Housekeeper and her little boy. With each new equation, the three lost souls forge an affection more mysterious than imaginary numbers, and a bond that runs deeper than memory.
The Housekeeper and the Professor is an enchanting story about what it means to live in the present, and about the curious equations that can create a family where one before did not exist.
Format: Paperback | 192 pages
Dimensions (cm): 21.5 x 13.3 x 1.5 | 214g
Publication Date: 01 Jun 2009
Publisher: Random House
Imprint: Harvill Secker
Publication City/Country: London, United Kingdom
Language: English
Edition Number: 1
ISBN10: 1846552508
ISBN13: 9781846552502
Condition: Good
A book that has been read but is in good condition. Some obvious damage to the cover including scuff marks, creasing and scratches, but no holes or tears. The majority of pages are undamaged with minimal creasing but no tearing. No pencil underlining of text, no highlighting of text and no writing in margins. No missing pages.