Japanese Literature

The Moon Over the Mountain: Stories

Atsushi Nakajima · 2011

Runaway Horses: The Sea of Fertility, 2

Yukio Mishima · 1990

The Tale of the Heike

· 1990

The Book of Five Rings

Musashi Miyamoto · 2023

Snow Country

Yasunari Kawabata · 1996

<b>This masterpiece from the Nobel Prize-winning author and acclaimed writer of <i>Thousand Cranes </i>is a powerful tale of wasted love set amid the desolate beauty of western Japan. • “Kawabata’s novels are among the most affecting and original works of our time.” —<i>The New York Times Book Review</i><br></b><br> At an isolated mountain hot spring, with snow blanketing every surface, Shimamura, a wealthy dilettante meets Komako, a lowly geisha. She gives herself to him fully and without remorse, despite knowing that their passion cannot last and that the affair can have only one outcome. In chronicling the course of this doomed romance, Kawabata has created a story for the ages—a stunning novel dense in implication and exalting in its sadness.

Yasunari Kawabata, Yukio Mishima correspondence (1997) ISBN: 4104200018 [Japanese Import]

川端康成 · 1997

Ao no jidai [Japanese Edition]

Yukio Mishima · 1995

Spring Snow: The Sea of Fertility, 1

Yukio Mishima · 1990

"A classic of Japanese literature" (Chicago Sun-Times) and the first novel in the masterful tetralogy, The Sea of Fertility, set in 1912 Tokyo, featuring an aspiring lawyer who believes he has met the successive reincarnations of his childhood friend.<br/><br/>It is 1912 in Tokyo, and the hermetic world of the ancient aristocracy is being breached for the first time by outsiders—rich provincial families unburdened by tradition, whose money and vitality make them formidable contenders for social and political power. Shigekuni Honda, an aspiring lawyer and his childhood friend, Kiyoaki Matsugae, are the sons of two such families. As they come of age amidst the growing tensions between old and new, Kiyoaki is plagued by his simultaneous love for and loathing of the spirited young woman Ayakura Satoko. But Kiyoaki’s true feelings only become apparent when her sudden engagement to a royal prince shows him the magnitude of his passion—and leads to a love affair both doomed and inevitable.

The Pillow Book (Penguin Classics)

Sei Shonagon · 2006

I Am a Cat (Tuttle Classics)

Soseki Natsume · 2001

"A nonchalant string of anecdotes and wisecracks, told by a fellow who doesn't have a name, and has never caught a mouse, and isn't much good for anything except watching human beings in action…" —The New Yorker<br/><br/>Written from 1904 through 1906, Soseki Natsume's comic masterpiece, I Am a Cat, satirizes the foolishness of upper-middle-class Japanese society during the Meiji era. With acerbic wit and sardonic perspective, it follows the whimsical adventures of a world-weary stray kitten who comments on the follies and foibles of the people around him.<br/><br/>A classic of Japanese literature, I Am a Cat is one of Soseki's best-known novels. Considered by many as the most significant writer in modern Japanese history, Soseki's I Am a Cat is a classic novel sure to be enjoyed for years to come.

The Temple of the Golden Pavilion

Yukio Mishima · 1994

No Longer Human

Osamu Dazai · 1973

<p> Mine has been a life of much shame. I can't even guess myself what it must be to live the life of a human being. </p><p>Portraying himself as a failure, the protagonist of Osamu Dazai's No Longer Human narrates a seemingly normal life even while he feels himself incapable of understanding human beings. His attempts to reconcile himself to the world around him begin in early childhood, continue through high school, where he becomes a "clown" to mask his alienation, and eventually lead to a failed suicide attempt as an adult. Without sentimentality, he records the casual cruelties of life and its fleeting moments of human connection and tenderness.</p><p>Still one of the ten bestselling books in Japan, No Longer Human is an important and unforgettable modern classic: "The struggle of the individual to fit into a normalizing society remains just as relevant today as it was at the time of writing." (The Japan Times)</p>

A Personal Matter

Kenzaburo Oe · 2011