10/02: Japan Foundation Los Angeles to present “Author Event: Toshikazu Kawaguchi” at its hall, 5700 Wilshire Blvd, Suite 100, Los Angeles, CA 90036, on Wednesday, Oct. 2 from 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
This exciting author spotlight event is dubbed as Before YOUR Coffee Gets Cold, Meet Author Toshikazu Kawaguchi.
Joining Kawaguchi will be Naomi Hirahara, Los Angeles-based Edgar Award-winning author, as a moderator and conversation facilitator.
Admission is free. Registration is required.
This event will be an intimate conversation with acclaimed Japanese author Toshikazu Kawaguchi as he discusses his best-selling book series Before the Coffee Gets Cold during his North American tour.
In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a cafe which has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time.
In Before the Coffee Gets Cold, we meet four visitors, each of whom is hoping to make use of the cafe’s time-travelling offer. But the journey into the past does not come without risks: customers must sit in a particular seat, they cannot leave the cafe, and finally, they must return to the present before the coffee gets cold…
The event promises to be an engaging conversation where Kawaguchi will share thoughts about his creative process, how he imbued fictional characters with emotional motivations, and how his books explore the questions “What would you change if you could travel back in time? Who would you want to meet, maybe for one last time?”
Copies of the series may be purchased during the event from on-site vendor Chevalier’s Books. Books purchased on site or brought from home will be signed by the author. At his North American events, pre-order copies of Before We Forget Kindness and receive a signed bookplate and bookmark to take home! Pre-ordered copies can be picked up from Chevalier’s after November 5, or can be shipped for an extra fee.
Author: Toshikazu Kawaguchi was born in Osaka, Japan, in 1971. He used to produce, direct and write for the theatrical group Sonic Snail. As a playwright, his most representative works include COUPLE, Sunset Song, and family time. His debut book as an author, Before the Coffee Gets Cold, was based on his 1110 Productions play that won the 10th Suginami Drama Festival grand prize. There are currently five books in the series and the English translation for the fifth, Before We Forget Kindness, will be released in November 2024.
Moderator: Naomi Hirahara is an Edgar Award-winning author of multiple traditional mystery series and noir short stories. Her first historical mystery, Clark and Division, which won a Mary Higgins Clark Award, follows a Japanese American family’s move to Chicago in 1944 after being released from a California wartime detention center. A former journalist with The Rafu Shimpo newspaper, Naomi has also written numerous non-fiction history books and curated exhibitions.
This event is presented in partnership with Hanover Square Press, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
