I’d really love to Before the Coffee Gets Cold performed on stage. It’s unusual, heartwarming and unlike anything I’ve ever read in terms of creativity and prowse. Kei’s chapter is particularly emotive, portraying how powerful a mother’s love is. Before the Coffee Gets Cold explores the reality of this question, and what people truly value as important.Īt first, the book is comical, a light-hearted quick read, but as you turn each page, a new layer is peeled back, revealing the bittersweet nature of the story. How many times have you been asked, ‘if you could go back in time, where would you go and what would you do.’ With Back to the Future being one of my all-time favourite films, it is a question I’ve pondered on occasion. Hirai had long avoided her sister who was desperate for her to return to the family home, and she wants to travel back in time to see her again.Īnd finally there is Kei – the only one who travels forward in time – to meet her daughter. This story really tugs on the heartstrings of anyone who has been affected by the disease. Kohtake wants to travel back to speak to her husband, who has developed Alzheimer’s and doesn’t recognise her anymore. But as per the rules, nothing said or done in the past can change the future. Each person has a different reason for wanting to travel back in time.įumiko wants to travel back to meet her boyfriend, who left Tokyo for America for work, to see if things would change if she told him how she felt. Each chapter follows a different character, each one somewhat interlinked with their predecessor. It makes the book rather poetic.īefore the Coffee Gets Cold is divided into four chapters, or acts. Each movement and line choreographed so as not to interrupt or distract from another character. The novel still holds some theatrical elements in the way scenes are described in detail, painting the picture of the time-travelling café. The book was written by Toshikazu Kawaguchi as a stage play, which was adapted into a novel, and translated to English by Geoffrey Trosselot.

There is a time limit, and you must return before the coffee gets cold, by drinking the entire cup – or you will become the ghost in the chair.Whatever you say or do will not alter the present.Try to forcibly move her and you will be cursed. There is the ghost of a woman sitting in the chair who only moves once a day to the toilet – this is the only time someone can time-travel.The time-traveller must sit in a particular chair, and cannot move from it.And they’d be right – only there are several rules that must not be broken. Set entirely in a Tokyo café, local legend has it that you can be transported back in time in the windowless, clockless café. Before the Coffee Gets Cold is a wonderful little Japanese fiction about time-travel.

Before the coffee gets cold review