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Podcast with Simon Partner, author of “Koume’s World: The Life and Work of a...
In 1864, on a midsummer’s day, Kawai Koume, a 60-year old matriarch of a samurai family in Wakayama, makes a note in her diary, which she had dutifully written in for over three decades. “There are...
View Article“The Meiji Guillotine Murders” by Futaro Yamada
Futaro Yamada, discovered by the hugely influential mystery writer Edogawa Rampo, was hugely prolific in his lifetime, with many of his stories being adapted to film, such as Nagisa Ōshima’s thriller...
View Article“A Woman of Pleasure” by Kiyoko Murata
Kiyoko Murata’s A Woman of Pleasure is a story of Japan’s pleasure quarters in 1903 and 1904. Fifteen-year-old Aoi Ichi grew up on a rocky volcanic island, “the sort of place where stumbling upon a...
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“A Wild Windy Night” by Yui Abe
As the clock approaches 8 pm, a young boy hears the howling wind and believes it is asking him to come out and play. When his mother informs him that it’s bedtime, Ricky settles down for the night. The...
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New Book Announcement: “The Dawn of the Warrior Age: War Tales from Medieval...
The Dawn of the Warrior Age: War Tales from Medieval Japan, Royall Tyler (trans), (Columbia University Press, April 2024) The war between the Heike and Genji clans in the 13th and 13th centuries is...
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Podcast with Glynne Walley, translator of “Eight Dogs, or ‘Hakkenden’ Part...
Glynne Walley, translator of classic Japanese novel Hakkenden, joins us on the podcast again to talk about his second translated volume: Hakkenden, Part 2: His Master’s Blade. Unlike Part 1—which is...
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New Book Announcement: “Joy, Despair, Illusion, Dreams: Twenty Plays from the...
Joy, Despair, Illusion, Dreams: Twenty Plays from the Nō Tradition, Royall Tyler (trans) (Columbia University Press, April 2024) Nō drama, which integrates speech, song, dance, music, mask, and costume...
View Article“Cannibals” by Shinya Tanaka
In his Akutagawa Prize-winning Cannibals, Shinya Tanaka doesn’t shy away from dark topics, dealing with crippling poverty, violence and sexual abuse in an often matter-of-fact way. Perhaps the author’s...
View Article“Point Zero” by Seicho Matsumoto
Seicho Matsumoto was one of Japan’s most celebrated mystery writers —with two dozen novels to his name from the late 1950s, at a time when Japan was rebuilding after the war until just before his death...
View Article“Swan Knight” by Fumio Takano
Ludwig II was born in 1845. He became King of Bavaria in 1864, when he was only 18 years old. Within Bavaria, he is sometimes called the Swan King or even the Fairy Tale King. Outside of Germany, he is...
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