In Hiromi Kawakami¡¯s world, humans are the odd ones out.

In her newly published short story collection ¡°Dragon Palace,¡± translated into English by Ted Goossen, Kawakami returns to one of her cherished conceits, a world of fluid transfiguration; people come and go as animals, and vice versa. The prolific Japanese writer has been working since the 1990s and is best known in English for her novel ¡°Strange Weather in Tokyo.¡±