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Episode 43: Japanese Writers Standing Up to the State
Listen to Episode 43 of the Read Literature podcast. Transcript available. In this episode, we take a look at the Japanese proletarian writers’ movement of the 1920s and…
Transcript of Episode 43: Japanese Writers Standing Up to the State
Find out more about Episode 43 of the Read Literature podcast on the episode page. Link to listen Notes and sources Ways to support the podcast This is…
Japanese Proletarian Fiction
Proletarian literature was an international movement, especially in the 1920s and 1930s. The Soviet Union held a meeting of proletarian writers in July 1924 and made an international…
Episode 42: Keiichiro Hirano
Listen to Episode 42 of the Read Literature podcast. Transcript available. For the first time ever, RJL brings you information from an interview with a Japanese author—Akutagawa-winner Keiichiro…
Transcript of Episode 42: Keiichiro Hirano
Find out more about Episode 42 of the Read Literature podcast on the episode page. Link to listen Notes and sources Ways to support the podcast This is…
RJL’s Interview with Keiichiro Hirano
Akutagawa-winning author Keiichiro Hirano was kind enough to sit down with Read Japanese Literature’s Alison Fincher for an interview on November 18, 2024 to talk about his life…
Romance in Japanese Fiction
It’s February and (for some of us) love is in the air. Traditionally, RJL has celebrated with some pretty unromantic topics like sexlessness and misogyny in Japanese fiction.…
31 Short Stories for January in Japan
In honor of January in Japan, RJL presents a list of 31 translated Japanese short stories you can read on-line for free, listed alphabetically by author. 2025 marks…
RJL’s Totally Arbitrary List of 31 Great Reads for January in Japan, or “Where Do I Begin with Japanese Literature”
The books on this list are some of my favorite books translated from Japanese. They are also great “starting points” for readers new to Japanese literature, especially because…
Episode 41: Christmas in Japanese Literature
Listen to Episode 41 of the Read Literature podcast. Transcript available. Happy holidays! And, in the interest of today’s episode, merri kurisumasu!Today we’re going to start with the…
Transcript of Episode 41: Christmas in Japanese Literature
Find out more about Episode 41 of the Read Literature podcast on the episode page. Link to listen Notes and sources Ways to support the podcast This is…
Christmas in Japanese Literature
Christmas originated as a Christian holiday, but it’s still celebrated in Japan—a country where somewhere between one and two percent of the country is Christian. So maybe it…
Transcript of Episode 40: LGBTQ+ Stories from Japan, part two
Find out more about Episode 40 of the Read Literature podcast on the episode page. Link to listen Notes and sources Ways to support the podcast This is…
2025 New and Upcoming Japanese Fiction Releases
*Updated as of December 1, 2024 This is a list of titles from Japan translated into English for publication in 2025. It does not include most manga, light…
RJL’s Holiday Gift Guide
Do you dream of sharing your love of Japanese literature with the perfect translated book? Read Japanese Literature has 15 recommendations to cover everyone on your list. We’ve…
Episodes 39-40: LGBTQ+ Stories from Japan
Listen to Episode 39 of the Read Literature podcast online or on your favorite podcast app. Episode 39 transcript available. Episode 40 of the Read Literature podcast is…
Transcript of Episode 39: LGBTQ+ Stories from Japan
Find out more about Episode 39 of the Read Literature podcast on the episode page—coming soon. Link to listen Notes and sources Ways to support the podcast This…
LGBTQ+ Stories from Japan
RJL presents a list of LGBTQ+ stories from Japan that are available in English translation. Japanese authors have written about same sex relationships for more than a millennium.…
Japanese Horror Stories
Japanese horror stories can be scary. (Just ask any Millennial traumatized by The Ring—like I was!) Some of these stories are so scary (at least to me!) that…
Episode 38: Japanese Crime and Mystery Writing
Listen to Episode 38 of the Read Literature podcast. Transcript available. Today, we’re talking about crime and mystery novels from Japan. We’ll start with the development of the…
Transcript of Episode 38: Japanese Crime and Mystery Writing
Find out more about Episode 38 of the Read Literature podcast on the episode page. Link to listen Notes and sources Ways to support the podcast I apologize…
Japanese “Cat Books”
Anyone who reads Japanese literature has surely noticed the overwhelming number of books about cats. It’s not just a phenomenon of fiction in translation—there are a lot of…
Japanese Crime and Mystery Writing
Japanese readers have been happily devouring crime and mystery stories since the first translations of Edgar Allan Poe and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle began to appear in Japanese…
Episode 37: Atomic Bomb Literature
Listen to Episode 37 of the Read Literature podcast. Transcript available. In this episode, we take a look at Japanese writing about the American bombings of Hiroshima and…
Transcript of Episode 37: Atomic Bomb Literature
Find out more about Episode 37of the Read Literature podcast on the episode page. Link to listen Notes and sources Ways to support the podcast This is Read…
Japanese Atomic Literature
Kenzaburo Oe edited one of the most important anthologies of atomic bomb literature, The Crazy Iris and Other Stories of the Atomic Aftermath. In his 1985 introduction, Oe…
100+ Japanese Books under 200 Pages
Japanese literature excels at novellas and short fiction. RJL brings you a list of 100 Japanese books in translation under 200 pages, listed in alphabetical order by title.…
31 Women Writing in Japanese
August is Women in Translation Month (#WITMonth). RJL brings you a list of 31 of the most important women writing in Japanese after the Meiji Restoration of 1868.…
Japanese Comfort Reads
There are comforting reads and there are comfort reads. All readers have days when they want to crawl into something familiar. But especially since the early days of…
Episode 36: Zainichi Literature—Koreans Writing in Japan
Listen to Episode 36 of the Read Literature podcast. Transcript available. In this episode, we take a look at the history of Koreans writing in Japan. We’ll start…
Transcript of Episode 36: Zainichi Writers—Koreans Writing in Japan
Find out more about Episode 36 of the Read Literature podcast on the episode page. Link to listen Notes and sources Ways to support the podcast This is…
LGBTQ+ Writing from Japan
June is LGBTQ+ Pride Month. To celebrate, RJL brings you a list of LGBTQ+ authors’ writing in Japanese who are available to read in English translation. The list…
Transcript of Episode 35: The End of the World! Japanese Apocalypse, part three
Find out more about Episode 35 of the Read Literature podcast on the episode page. Link to listen Notes and sources Ways to support the podcast This is…
Transcript of Episode 34: The End of the World! Japanese Apocalypse, part two
Find out more about Episode 34 of the Read Literature podcast on the episode page. Link to listen Notes and sources Ways to support the podcast This is…
Episodes 33-35: The End of the World! Japanese Apocalypse
Check out Episode 33 of the Read Japanese Literature podcast, The End of the World—Japanese Apocalypse, Part 1. (Transcript of part 1.) Coming soon! Episode 34 of the…
Transcript of Episode 33: The End of the World! Japanese Apocalypse, Part One
Find out more about Episode 33 of the Read Literature podcast on the episode page (coming soon). Link to listen Notes and sources Ways to support the podcast…
Japanese Apocalyptic and Dystopian Fiction
Support RJL. Check out our Bookshop.org page. Learn more about Japanese apocalyptic fiction with the RJL podcast. (Coming soon.) — • 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami (translated by Jay…
Transcript of Episode 32: Misogyny and Yukio Mishima, part two
Find out more about Episode 32 of the Read Literature podcast on the episode page. Link to listen Notes and sources Ways to support the podcast Read Japanese…
Episode 31-32: Misogyny and Yukio Mishima
Check out Episode 31 of the Read Japanese Literature podcast—Misogyny and Mishima, part 1. Check out Episode 31 of the Read Japanese Literature podcast—Misogyny and Mishima, part 2.…
Transcript of Episode 31: Misogyny and Yukio Mishima, part one
Find out more about Episode 31 of the Read Literature podcast on the episode page. Link to listen Notes and sources Ways to support the podcast Read Japanese…
Episode 30: Kenji Miyazawa
Check out Episode 30 of the Read Literature podcast. Transcript available. There is no one quite like Kenji Miyazawa. Born into wealth, he longed to be “a real…
Transcript of Episode 30: Kenji Miyazawa
Find out more about Episode 30 of the Read Literature podcast on the episode page. Link to listen Notes and sources Ways to support the podcast This is…
2024 New and Upcoming Japanese Fiction Releases
“The Courtesan Hanazome of the Ogiya Reading a Letter and Grinding Ink” by Kikukawa Eizan (c. 1810-1815) Titles from Japan translated into English for publication in 2024. Does…
Episode 29: The Stories of Studio Ghibli
Check out Episode 29 of the Read Literature podcast. Transcript available. To celebrate the overseas release of The Boy and the Heron (aka How Do You Live?) RJL…
Transcript of Episode 29: The Stories of Studio Ghibli
Find out more about Episode 29 of the Read Literature podcast on the episode page. Link to listen Notes and sources Ways to support the podcast [1:08] This…
Episode 28: Haruki Murakami
Check out Episode 28 of the Read Literature podcast. Transcript available. In this episode, we’re talking about one of the most important voices in modern Japanese literature, Haruki…
Transcript of Episode 28: Haruki Murakami
Find out more about Episode 28 of the Read Literature podcast on the episode page. Link to listen Notes and sources Ways to support the podcast This is…
Episode 27: Japanese Children’s Literature
Check out Episode 27 of the Read Literature podcast. Transcript available. In this episode, we’re talking about Japanese children’s literature. The history of children’s literature in g…
Transcript of Episode 27: Japanese Children’s Literature
Find out more about Episode 27 of the Read Literature podcast on the episode page. Link to listen Notes and sources Ways to support the podcast This is…
Japanese Children’s Literature in English Translation
RJL’s booklists don’t include children’s literature, so here’s a list for your reference. Support RJL by buying through our links. Check out our Bookshop.org page. Middle Gr…