Mesmerising and starkly beautiful * * Observer * * A heart-breaking love story told in the form of a classic fable . . . A stylistic tour de force, a literary gem of bewitching power * * Sunday Times * * Deeply moving . . . A delicately crafted love story and an anatomy of desire * * Guardian * * An intensely powerful and perceptive drama of the deepest human desires . . . One of the most astonishing and moving novels I have ever read * * Daily Telegraph * * Haunting and delicately erotic * * Mail on Sunday * *

In 1861 French silkworm merchant Herve Joncour travels to Japan, where he encounters the mysterious Hara Kei. He develops a painful longing for Kei's beautiful concubine - but they cannot touch; they don't even speak. And he cannot read the note she sends him until he has returned to his own country. But the moment he does, Joncour is enslaved. Subtle, tender and surprising, Silk is an evocative tale of erotic possession.