“Dragon Palace” by Hiromi Kawakami
Hiromi Kawakami is one of the best-known Japanese writers available in English translation today. Her novels like Strange Weather in Tokyo are beloved by many English-language readers. But her most...
View Article“Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again” by Shigeru Kayama
The giant reptile Godzilla has spawned a franchise of 38 films (and counting) and even has his own official website. But for all the fun of a rampaging 50m monster (or is he 120m?—he has grown along...
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“The Goodbye Cat” by Hiro Arikawa
Hiro Arikawa came to international attention when The Travelling Cat Chronicles became a bestseller in many languages, not least English. The story of a man named Satoru and his cat Nana who go on an...
View Article“What You Are Looking For Is in the Library” by Michiko Aoyama
With a swift rattle on the computer keyboard and a bonus gift made out of a ball of wool, an extraordinary librarian gives book recommendations that guide five individuals wandering through life to...
View Article“The End of August” by Yu Miri
Yu Miri in her novel The End of August tells an extraordinary tale: the saga of her Korean family and the story of their nation. Her story spans space and time, giving voice to both the living and the...
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Podcast with Jeffrey Angles, translator of “Godzilla and Godzilla Raids...
Earlier this month, Toho Studios released “Godzilla Minus One”—the 37th film in the now almost seven-decade-old franchise. Godzilla has gone through many phases over the past 70 years: symbol of...
View Article“This is Amiko, Do You Copy?” by Natsuko Imamura
The toy walkie-talkie set Amiko receives on her tenth birthday, one that she bounces with excitement to use with her yet-to-be-born brother or sister, is never successfully played with; there always...
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“The Black Lizard” by Edogawa Rampo
Edogawa Rampo (or Ranpo) was one of the most prolific Japanese mystery and crime writers of a century or so ago, and his work has remained in the public eye, whether in Japanese film, manga, video...
View Article“Koume’s World: The Life and Work of a Samurai Woman Before and After the...
In 1804, a girl was born in Wakayama, the capital city of Kishū domain in mid-Japan. Named Koume (“little plum”), she was born into a family of low-ranking samurai. Her father was a scholar and...
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“The Mantis” by Kotaro Isaka
It’s difficult not to compare Kotaro Isaka’s third novel in his loosely connected trilogy to Bullet Train, the book and film that put the series on the map. The Mantis, translated by Sam Malissa,...
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“The Mud of a Century” by Yūka Ishii
“Perhaps you could call it a stroke of karmic good fortune that I was able to experience a once-in-a-century flood only three and a half months after moving to Chennai.” So opens Yūka Ishii’s The Mud...
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“Rental Person Who Does Nothing” by Shoji Morimoto
Rental Person Who Does Nothing is a memoir about a project—or perhaps even an experiment—by Shoji Morimoto. Morimoto’s wife encountered a blog post by therapist and self-help writer Jinnosuke Kokoroya...
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New Book Announcement: “Stateless” by Chen Tienshi Lara, translated by Louis...
Stateless, Chen Tienshi Lara, Louis Carlet (trans) (NUS Press, November 2023) “For the first time in my life, I experienced the terror of international limbo, unable to enter any country. What would...
View Article“Harlequin Butterfly” by Toh EnJoe
Harlequin Butterfly opens on a transpacific flight. Businessman AA Abrams introduces himself to an unnamed, first-person narrator and shows him a tiny butterfly net. “I use this net to go around...
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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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