The luckless Amélie makes the mistake of, first, showing initiative, and, second, deigning to show sympathy for her immediate superior, the beautiful, efficient, and ice-cold Miss Mori. What follows is a process of ritual humiliation. Amélie is forced to do a series of mind-numbing, repetitive tasks -- and worse; her life at the Yumimoto Corporation spirals inexorably downward. And yet what she learns about herself and her colleagues in this brilliant novel will alternately amuse, outrage, and move readers.

Not since Marguerite Duras' The Lover has a novel so indelibly marked the differences between East and West, nor done so with such seductive charm, honesty, and humor. Fear and Trembling is a novel about a clash of cultures, and the process of self-discovery it begets.