The first novel by Kazuo Ishiguro, originally published in 1982.

Etsuko is a Japanese woman now living alone in England. Retreating into the past, she finds herself reliving one particular hot summer in Nagasaki, when she and her friends struggled to rebuild their lives after the war. But as she recalls her strange friendship with Sachiko - a wealthy woman reduced to vagrancy - the memories take on a disturbing cast.