to read: japanese literature
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Books
Never Let Me Go
Ishiguro Kazuo · 2010
Never Let Me Go (10) by Ishiguro, Kazuo [Paperback (2010)]
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The Remains of the Day
Kazuo Ishiguro · 1990
Breasts and Eggs
Mieko Kawakami · 2020
A novel that “considers the agency . . . women exert over their bodies and charts the emotional underpinnings of physical changes . . . with humor and empathy” (The New Yorker). On a sweltering summer day, Makiko travels from Osaka to Tokyo, where her sister Natsu lives. She is in the company of her daughter, Midoriko, who has lately grown silent, finding herself unable to voice the vague yet overwhelming pressures associated with adolescence. Over the course of their few days together in the capital, Midoriko’s silence will prove a catalyst for each woman to confront her fears and family secrets. On yet another summer’s day eight years later, Natsu, during a journey back to her native city, confronts her anxieties about growing old alone and childless. Bestselling author Mieko Kawakami mixes stylistic inventiveness and riveting emotional depth to tell a story of contemporary womanhood in Japan. “Took my breath away.” —Haruki Murakami, #1 New York Times–bestselling author The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle “Kawakami lobbed a literary grenade into the fusty, male-dominated world of Japanese fiction with Breast and Eggs.” —The Economist “A sharply observed and heartbreaking portrait of what it means to be a woman.” —TIME “Raw, funny, mundane, heartbreaking.” —The Atlantic “A bracing, feminist exploration of daily life in Japan.” —Entertainment Weekly “Timely feminist themes; strange, surreal prose; and wonderful characters will transcend cultural barriers and enchant readers.” —The New York Observer “Bracing and evocative, tender yet unflinching.” —Publishers Weekly “Kawakami writes with unsettling precision about the body—its discomforts, its appetites, its smells and secretions. And she is especially good at capturing its longings.” —The New York Times Book Review
Schoolgirl
Osamu Dazai · 2011
Essentially the start of Dazai's career, Schoolgirl gained notoriety for its ironic and inventive use of language. Now it illuminates the prevalent social structures of a lost time, as well as the struggle of the individual against them–a theme that occupied Dazai's life both personally and professionally. This new translation preserves the playful language of the original and offers the reader a new window into the mind of one of the greatest Japanese authors of the 20th century.
ALL THE LOVERS IN THE NIGHT
Mieko Kawakami · 2023
From literary sensation and International Booker Prize-shortlisted author Mieko Kawakami, the bestelling author of Breasts and Eggs and Heaven comes All the Lovers in the Night, an extraordinary, deeply moving and insightful story set in contemporary Tokyo.<br/><br/>Fuyuko Irie is a freelance proofreader in her thirties. Living alone in an overwhelming city and unable to form meaningful relationships, she has little contact with anyone other than her colleague, Hijiri. But a chance encounter with a man named Mitsutsuka awakens something new in her. Through their weekly meetings, Fuyuko starts to see the world in a different light and still, painful memories from her past begin to resurface. As Fuyuko realizes she exists in a small world of her own making she begins to push at her own boundaries. But will she find the strength to bring down the walls that surround her?<br/><br/>Pulsing and poetic, modern and shocking, this is an unforgettable novel from Japan’s most exciting writer.
Norwegian Wood
Haruki Murakami · 2000
A special movie-tie in edition for the long-awaited film release based on this beloved novel by Haruki Murakami: the story of one college student's romantic coming-of-age, a journey to that distant place of a young man's first, hopeless, and heroic love.<br/><br/>Toru, a quiet and preternaturally serious young college student in Tokyo, is devoted to Naoko, a beautiful and introspective young woman, but their mutual passion is marked by the tragic death of their best friend years before. Toru begins to adapt to campus life and the loneliness and isolation he faces there, but Naoko finds the pressures and responsibilities of life unbearable. As she retreats further into her own world, Toru finds himself reaching out to others and drawn to a fiercely independent and sexually liberated young woman.
The Hole
Hiroko Oyamada · 2020
Winner of the Akutagawa Prize, The Hole is by turns reminiscent of Lewis Carroll, David Lynch, and My Neighbor Totoro, but is singularly unsettling Asa’s husband is transferring jobs, and his new office is located near his family’s home in the countryside. During an exceptionally hot summer, the young married couple move in, and Asa does her best to quickly adjust to their new rural lives, to their remoteness, to the constant presence of her in-laws and the incessant buzz of cicadas. While her husband is consumed with his job, Asa is left to explore her surroundings on her own: she makes trips to the supermarket, halfheartedly looks for work, and tries to find interesting ways of killing time.<br/>One day, while running an errand for her mother-in-law, she comes across a strange creature, follows it to the embankment of a river, and ends up falling into a hole―a hole that seems to have been made specifically for her. This is the first in a series of bizarre experiences that drive Asa deeper into the mysteries of this rural landscape filled with eccentric characters and unidentifiable creatures, leading her to question her role in this world, and eventually, her sanity.
