Mukoda Kuniko :: The Woman Next Door

|

The Woman Next Door
by MUKŌDA Kuniko


Translated by A. Reid MONROE-SHERIDAN

Lonely people trapped in webs of their own design, seeking hope, love, forgiveness, validation... Five stories reveal the innermost hopes and fears of ordinary women, and men, facing the demands of others and of themselves in cool marriage and cold betrayal, exploring new avenues through new encounters.

Tanaka Yasuo :: Somehow, Crystal

|

Somehow, Crystal
by TANAKA Yasuo


Translated by Christopher SMITH

A journey into the carefree, today-centric generation of Japan's economic boom years, as they enjoy the cosmopolitan lifestyle of Tokyo while exploring new dimensions in Japanese society and self-image. It won the coveted Bungei Prize partly because it was so completely different from the relatively staid, traditional literature of the time, but also because it served as a guide into the evolving world of a rich, global, commercialized nation and a younger generation who grew up never knowing war.

Winner of the 1980 Bungei Prize
Finalist for the 1981 Akutagawa Prize.

(more…)

Hanmura Ryo :: The Sheltering Rain

|

The Sheltering Rain
by HANMURA Ryō


Translated by Jim Hubbert

A diverse cross-section of Japan passes through the bar Lui, and the bartender tends to them all, with all their hopes and their fears. Underneath the black suits—whether crumpled or designer—and the cosmetics, they're all people on the way to somewhere else in Tokyo's glittering boom era. The bartenders and Mama-sans who keep everything running smoothly rely on their own camaraderie, night after night.
Winner of the 1975 Naoki Prize.

(more…)

Beneath the Sleepless Tossing
of the Planets

Selected Poems of
Makoto ŌOKA

 

Introduction by Shuntarō Tanikawa
Translated by Janine Beichman

One of the most important poets of contemporary Japan, Makoto Ōoka's works continue to resonate powerfully among readers today. He speaks to the spirit, not of Japan and the Japanese, but of humanity, and of the world we are a part of.

Winner of the 2019-2020 Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature.
It is an honor and a delight to be able to bring such an important work to the English language, and to re-introduce the genius of the author, Ōoka Makoto, to the community of global literature.

(more…)

Strokes of Brush and Blade

|

Strokes of Brush and Blade
Tales of the Samurai

Selected by Edward Lipsett

The samurai were more than just warriors, although of course when war came they were ready. For a thousand years they were, in a very real sense, the glue that held Japan together through all the emperors and shoguns who wielded the power.

(more…)

Terayama Shuji :: When I Was a Wolf

|

When I Was a Wolf
Outlaw Takes on Fables and Fairy Tales
TERAYAMA Shūji

 

Translated by Elizabeth L. ARMSTRONG

First published in 1982, this delightful collection of essays and rewrites reinterprets, from a nonconformist perspective, such well-known and canonical Western stories as Grimm’s Fairy Tales, Mother Goose stories, and Aesop’s fables.

(more…)

Takeshi Kaiko :: Into A Black Sun

|

Into A Black Sun
by Takeshi KAIKO


Translated by Cecilia Segawa Seigle

Recognized as the author's finest work, Into A Black Sun blurs the line between literature and journalism, drawing on his experiences as a war correspondent in Vietnam to present an immersive depiction of the war. This is not a combat novel, but rather an Asian perspective on one of the wars that shaped modern America.

(more…)

Tokyo Decadence: 15 Stories by
Ryu MURAKAMI

 

Translated by Ralph McCARTHY

A cream-of-the-crop selection of Murakami's brilliance and piercing wit.
This collection shows sides of Ryu Murakami that even avid fans may not be expecting.

(more…)

Miyamoto Teru :: Rivers

|

Miyamoto Teru has established a considerable and devoted following in Japan, and is rapidly building a devoted readership in other Asian countries and parts of Europe as his fiction is translated into various languages. With only a few of his works currently available in English, however, Anglophone readers have for the most part been unaware of the "Teru" literary phenomenon. This book brings together his most famous work, the superlative Rivers Sequence: "Muddy River," which was published in 1977 and won the 78th Akutagawa Prize; "River of Fireflies," published the following year and promptly winning the 13th Dazai Osamu Prize; and "River of Lights," also published in 1978 but later extensively rewritten and expanded into a novel. All three works have been released as major films in Japan.

(more…)

Long Belts and Thin Men:

The Postwar Stories of
KOJIMA Nobuo


Introduced and translated by

Lawrence ROGERS

Kojima Nobuo is best-known in English for his outstanding novella, "Amerikan sukuuru" (1954, "The American School"), which earned the Akutagawa Prize that year. Strongly affected by World War II and the postwar era, his style evolved into a powerful, often painfully honest satire depicting the Japanese male as a Milquetoast, under the thumbs of women and society in general. Influenced by Gogol and other giants of Russian literature, Kojima's style and technique immerse the reader in the doubts and dilemmas of his characters to powerful effect.

(more…)

Teiunshū — Wandering Clouds

|

Teiunshū
Wandering Clouds

By Masaharu ANESAKI


Translated with an introduction by
Susanna FESSLER

Masaharu Anesaki (1873-1949) was a leading member of Japan’s most interesting generation: the second generation of Meiji scholars, who lived in a highly-educated if not rarefied world that blended Japanese and Western traditions in a way that made them unique in their country’s long history.

Following our first-English publication of Hanatsumi nikki, his neglected classic of travel writing, philosophy, history, and comparative religion, we are delighted to be able to offer the second volume of his fascinating examination of America, Europe, and India in the very first years of the 20th century. For scholars and general readers both, here is a glimpse into the mind of modern Japan as it stood at the crossroads of modernity, and a look into a very different, and gentler, West viewed through Japanese eyes.

(more…)

Blue Bamboo: Tales by Dazai Osamu

|

Blue Bamboo: Tales by Dazai Osamu


by DAZAI Osamu
Translated by Ralph MCCARTHY

Scholars and fans often divide the career of Dazai Osamu (1909–1948) into three periods—early, middle, and late. The early and late periods tend to get all the attention, but in fact Dazai was at his very best in the middle period, which corresponds roughly to the years of the Pacific War. All the stories in this collection, with the exception of the early "Romanesque," were written during that time.

(more…)

Phantom Lights and Other Stories


by MIYAMOTO Teru
Translated by Roger K. Thomas

Presenting a new collection of stories exploring the perennial themes of Miyamoto Teru's fiction, narrative sketches of the working-class world of the Osaka-Kobe region of his childhood employing memory to reveal a story in layered frames of time with consummate skill. His work examines the mutual proximity—or even the identity—of life and death, often touching on such grim topics with a touch of humor. Stories of personal triumph and hope are often set in situations involving death, illness, or loss, but what might be the stuff of tragedy in the hands of some writers turns into stepping stones for his characters to climb upward and onward.

(more…)

Otogizōshi: The Fairy Tale Book of Dazai Osamu


by DAZAI Osamu
Translated by Ralph MCCARTHY


Introduction by Joel Cohn

Momotarō, Click-Clack Mountain, The Sparrow Who Lost Her Tongue, The Stolen Wen, Urashima-san . . . The father reads these old tales to the children. Though he's shabbily dressed and looks to be a complete fool, this father is a singular man in his own right. He has an unusual knack for making up stories.

Once upon a time, long, long ago . . .

Even as he reads the picture book aloud in a strangely imbecilic voice, another, somewhat more elaborate tale is brewing inside him.

(more…)

Yoshiyuki Junnosuke: Fair Dalliance

|

Fair Dalliance: Fifteen Stories by Yoshiyuki Junnosuke

YOSHIYUKI Junnosuke


compiled and edited by
Lawrence ROGERS
preface by Donald RICHIE

This collection has come into being out of the conviction that the short stories of Yoshiyuki Junnosuke, if they were made accessible in English under one cover, would certainly be appreciated and enjoyed abroad as they have been in Japan. The prolific Yoshiyuki Junnosuke has left us a vast body of literature, a feast of short stories, novels, novellas, essays on a wide range of topics, translations from English, and light fiction whose function is simply to entertain. An edition of his complete works published in 1983, eleven years before death stilled his pen, came to 20 volumes.

(more…)

Yoshiyuki Junnosuke: Toward Dusk

|

Toward Dusk and Other Stories

YOSHIYUKI Junnosuke


translated by Andrew CLARE
preface by James DORSEY

Yoshiyuki Junnosuke was a sensual writer, whose style is reminiscent of that of novelists such as Tanizaki Jun'ichirō and Nagai Kafū. His works deal with the possibility of emotional purity in the relationships between men and women. Often, the relationship is examined through the agency of the protagonist's association with prostitutes.

(more…)