Silk
Alessandro Baricco, 1997 (trans. by Ann Goldstein, 2007)
Random House
144 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307277978
Summary
This startling, sensual, hypnotically compelling novel tells a story of adventure, sexual enthrallment, and a love so powerful that it unhinges a man's life.
The year is 1861. Hervé Joncour is a French merchant of silkworms, who combs the known world for their gemlike eggs.
Then circumstances compel him to travel farther, beyond the edge of the known, to a country legendary for the quality of its silk and its hostility to foreigners: Japan.
There Joncour meets a woman. They do not touch; they do not even speak. And he cannot read the note she sends him until he has returned to his own country. But in the moment he does, Joncour is possessed. (From the publisher.)
The 2007 film of the same name stars Michael Pitt and Keira Knightly.