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Ryokan: Mobilizing Hospitality in Rural Japan

Chris McMorran’s Ryokan: Mobilizing Hospitality in Rural Japan is an academic monograph about gender and society that’s surprisingly entertaining and enjoyable to read. McMorran is an anthropologis…

Contemporary Japanese Literature

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川のほとりに立つ者は

A young woman named Kiyose was recently promoted to the position of manager at an independent café. She devotes her love and attention to the business, but all…

Contemporary Japanese Literature

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The Night of Baba Yaga

The Night of Baba Yaga is two hundred pages of violence, torture, and rape. All of the novel’s descriptions of violence, torture, and rape are graphically explicit; and…

Contemporary Japanese Literature

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The Deer King: Survivors

Nahoko Uehashi’s fantasy epic The Deer King is the story of two characters who find themselves caught in an ongoing conflict fought on two fronts – an imperial…

Contemporary Japanese Literature

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ハンチバック

Saō Ichikawa’s ハンチバック (Hunchback), which won the prestigious Akutagawa Prize for emerging writers, is about a woman with a congenital spinal condition who lives in a group home…

Contemporary Japanese Literature

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室外機室

室外機室 collects four gorgeously illustrated magical realist stories drawn by an otherwise unpublished artist who goes by Chome. The stories transport the reader to a reality slightly removed…

Contemporary Japanese Literature

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The Forest Brims Over

Maru Ayase’s short magical realist novel The Forest Brims Over is about a young woman named Rui whose husband is a famous writer. Fed up with the words…

Contemporary Japanese Literature

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Glitch

Shima Shinya’s four-volume sci-fi manga Glitch opens in a mundane setting in contemporary Japan: a high school student named Minato Lee has moved to a small rural town…

Contemporary Japanese Literature

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Mina’s Matchbox

Tomoko is only twelve years old when she loses her father to cancer. To learn to support herself, Tomoko’s mother attends a dressmaking school in Tokyo, where she…

Contemporary Japanese Literature

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Emergent Tokyo

Emergent Tokyo: Designing the Spontaneous City is a fascinating study of urban space augmented by a wealth of photographs and illustrations. Jorge Almazán convincingly argues that, instead of…

Contemporary Japanese Literature

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Being Dead Otherwise

Being Dead Otherwise is an anthropological account of the shifting cultures of death and dying in contemporary Japan. Despite its seemingly grim topic, this is one of the…

Contemporary Japanese Literature

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Flowers of Grass

Takehiro Fukunaga’s 1954 novel Flowers of Grass is considered to be a classic of postwar Japanese fiction, and it’s the sort of book that I imagine many people…

Contemporary Japanese Literature

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Cannibals

Shinya Tanaka’s prizewinning novella Cannibals is a harrowing story of how poverty enables a cycle of abuse and assault. The writing and translation are beautiful, but the book…

Contemporary Japanese Literature

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Tokyo Express

Seichō Matsumoto’s Tokyo Express is a slim mystery novel from 1958 whose crime is largely dependent on train schedules. Although two apparent victims of suicide appear to have…

Contemporary Japanese Literature

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The God of Nishi-Yuigahama Station

Takeshi Murase’s linked short story collection The God of Nishi-Yuigahama Station is about four people who lost members of their family in a tragic train derailment. For a…

Contemporary Japanese Literature

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Rental Person Who Does Nothing

Shōji Morimoto’s Rental Person Who Does Nothing is probably the most chill autobio essay collection I’ve read, and it’s also one of the more interesting. Morimoto, who makes…

Contemporary Japanese Literature

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おやすみ、東京

Atsuhiro Yoshida’s 2018 linked short story collection おやすみ、東京 chronicles the adventures of a cast of slightly odd characters with subtle connections to one another. Each of the stories…

Contemporary Japanese Literature

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からだの美

Yōko Ogawa’s 2023 collection からだの美 brings together sixteen short essays on the theme of bodies and physicality. The three primary topics are sports, performing arts, and animals. The…

Contemporary Japanese Literature

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掌に眠る舞台

Yōko Ogawa’s 2022 collection 掌に眠る舞台 contains eight stories connected by the broad theme of “stages.” Some stories are about the world of performing arts, while others take an…

Contemporary Japanese Literature

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Tower Dungeon

Tsutomu Nihei’s newest manga series, Tower Dungeon, is a grim and grisly dark fantasy about a small team of knights attempting to rescue a princess from an evil…

Contemporary Japanese Literature

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Tokyo These Days

Taiyō Matsumoto’s newest series, Tokyo These Days, follows a senior manga editor named Shiozawa who suddenly quits his job at a publishing company. After an initial period of…

Contemporary Japanese Literature

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The Hunting Gun

Yasushi Inoue’s epistolary novella The Hunting Gun tells the story of a man’s extramarital affair through three letters: one from his daughter, one from his wife, and one…

Contemporary Japanese Literature

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A Perfect Day to Be Alone

Nanae Aoyama’s novella A Perfect Day to Be Alone chronicles a year in the life of a young woman named Chizu who moves in with an elderly relative…

Contemporary Japanese Literature

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Mild Vertigo

Mieko Kanai’s Mild Vertigo is a slice-of-life novella whose short length belies its Proustian ambitions. The narrator, a housewife living in an apartment in the Tokyo suburbs with…

Contemporary Japanese Literature

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Tree Spirits Grass Spirits

Tree Spirits Grass Spirits collects twenty-one autobiographical stories about plants by the celebrated Japanese-American poet Hiromi Ito. As translator Jon L Pitt explains in the preface, these sto…

Contemporary Japanese Literature

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Dragon Palace

Dragon Palace collects eight surreal stories by award-winning and internationally celebrated author Hiromi Kawakami. These stories are contemporary fantasies about shapeshifters, talking animals, a…

Contemporary Japanese Literature

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Diary of a Void

Diary of a Void is about a woman in her mid-thirties who lies about being pregnant and decides to run with it. Emi Yagi’s short novel isn’t quite…

Contemporary Japanese Literature

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Life Ceremony

Japanese Title: 生命式 (Seimeishiki)Author: Sayaka Murata (村田 沙耶香)Translator: Ginny Tapley TakemoriPublication Year: 2019 (Japan); 2022 (United States)Press: Grove PressPages: 244 Life Ceremony collec…

Contemporary Japanese Literature

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Dead-End Memories

Japanese Title: デッドエンドの思い出 (Deddo endo no omoide)Author: Banana Yoshimoto (吉本 ばなな)Translator: Asa YonedaPublication Year: 2003 (Japan); 2022 (United States)Press: CounterpointPages: 221 Dead-End Me…

Contemporary Japanese Literature

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Books on Japanese Culture and Society

This past semester I taught a class on Japanese science fiction and fantasy, and I was surprised by how interested my students were in learning more about the…

Contemporary Japanese Literature

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Japanese Suspense Novels by Female Authors

The Memory Police by Yoko OgawaNormal people quietly go about their lives on a sleepy island where memories collectively vanish a bit at a time. But what happens…

Contemporary Japanese Literature

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There’s No Such Thing As An Easy Job

Japanese Title: この世にたやすい仕事はない (Kono yo ni tayasui shigoto wa nai)Author: Kikuko Tsumura (津村 記久子)Translator: Polly BartonPublication Year: 2015 (Japan); 2020 (United Kingdom)Press: Bloomsbury Publis…

Contemporary Japanese Literature

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The End of the Line for the Shinra Corporation

One of the most iconic images of Final Fantasy VII is Cloud standing tall as he faces the dark tower of the Shinra corporate headquarters. Over the meandering…

Contemporary Japanese Literature

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The Easy Life in Kamusari

Japanese Title: 神去なあなあ日常 (Kamusari naa naa nichijō)Author: Shion Miura (三浦 しをん)Translator: Juliet Winters CarpenterPublication Year: 2012 (Japan); 2021 (United States)Press: Amazon CrossingPages: 1…

Contemporary Japanese Literature

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500 Years Later: An Oral History of Final Fantasy VII

Editor: Matt LeoneBook Design: Rachel DaltonPublication Year: 2018Press: Read-Only MemoryPages: 240 500 Years Later: An Oral History of Final Fantasy VII is a book-length collection of interviews w…

Contemporary Japanese Literature

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Earthlings

Japanese Title: 地球星人 (Chikyūseijin)Author: Sayaka Murata (村田 沙耶香)Translator: Ginny Tapley TakemoriPublication Year: 2018 (Japan); 2020 (United States)Press: Grove PressPages: 247 Content Warning: T…

Contemporary Japanese Literature

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The Life-Changing Magic of Embracing Your Inner Weirdo

Marie Kondo instructs readers of her bestselling home organization guide The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up to surround themselves only with things that spark joy. I don’t care…

Contemporary Japanese Literature

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The Cat Who Saved Books

Japanese Title: 本を守ろうとする猫の話 (Hon o mamorō to suru neko no hanashi)Author: Sosuke Natsukawa (夏川 草介)Translator: Louise Heal KawaiPublication Year: 2017 (Japan); 2021 (United States)Press: HarperColli…

Contemporary Japanese Literature

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The Beast Player

Japanese Title: 獣の奏者 I 闘蛇編 (Kemono no sōja ichi: Tōda hen) and 獣の奏者 II 王獣編 (Kemono no sōja ni: Ōjū hen)Author: Nahoko Uehashi (上橋 菜穂子)Translator: Cathy HiranoIllustrator: Yuta…

Contemporary Japanese Literature

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The Woman with the Flying Head

Author: Yumiko Kurahashi (倉橋由美子)Translator: Atsuko SakakiPublisher: M. E. SharpePublication Year: 1997Pages: 159 Yumiko Kurahashi was a member of the generation of female writers whose work began a…

Contemporary Japanese Literature

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So We Look to the Sky

Japanese Title: ふがいない僕は空を見た (Fugainai boku wa sora o mita)Author: Misumi Kubo (窪 美澄)Translator: Polly BartonPublication Year: 2010 (Japan); 2021 (United States)Press: Arcade PublishingPages: 267 So…

Contemporary Japanese Literature

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Lonely Castle in the Mirror

Japanese Title: かがみの孤城 (Kagami no kojō)Author: Mizuki Tsujimura (辻村 深月)Translator: Philip GabrielPublication Year: 2017 (Japan); 2021 (United Kingdom)Press: DoubledayPages: 355 Thirteen-year-old Ko…

Contemporary Japanese Literature

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The Woman in the Purple Skirt

Japanese Title: むらさきのスカートの女 (Murasaki no sukāto no onna)Author: Natsuko Imamura (今村 夏子)Translator: Lucy NorthPublication Year: 2019 (Japan); 2021 (United States)Publisher: Penguin BooksPages: 216 T…

Contemporary Japanese Literature

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Colorful

Japanese Title: カラフル (Karafuru)Author: Eto Mori (森絵都)Translator: Jocelyne AllenPublication Year: 1998 (Japan); 2021 (United States)Publisher: CounterpointPages: 224 A fourteen-year-old boy named Ma…

Contemporary Japanese Literature

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The Cat in the Coffin

Japanese Title: 柩の中の猫 (Hitsugi no naka no neko)Author: Mariko Koike (小池 真理子)Translator: Deborah Boliver BoehmPublication Year: 1990 (Japan); 2009 (United States)Publisher: VerticalPages: 190 Accord…

Contemporary Japanese Literature

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Where the Wild Ladies Are

Author: Aoko Matsuda (松田 青子)Japanese Title: おばちゃんたちのいるところ (Obachan-tachi no iru tokoro)Translator: Polly BartonPublication Year: 2016 (Japan); 2020 (United States)Publisher: Soft Skull PressPages: …

Contemporary Japanese Literature

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People From My Neighborhood

People from My Neighborhood Japanese Title: このあたりの人たち (Kono atari no hitotachi) Author: Hiromi Kawakami (川上 弘美) Translator: Ted Goossen Publication Year: 2019 (Japan); 2020 (United Kingdom) Publish…

Contemporary Japanese Literature

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Strange Tale of Panorama Island

Strange Tale of Panorama Island Japanese Title: パノラマ島奇談 (Panorama-tō kitan) Author: Edogawa Ranpo (江戸川 乱歩) Translator: Elaine Kazu Gerbert Publication Year: 1927 (Japan); 2013 (United States) Publi…

Contemporary Japanese Literature

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Overlord: The Undead King

Overlord, Volume 1: The Undead King Japanese Title: オーバーロード 1 不死者の王 (Ōbārōdo 1: Fushisha no ō) Author: Kugane Maruyama (丸山くがね) Translator: Emily Balistrieri Illustrator: so-bin (@soubin) Publicatio…

Contemporary Japanese Literature

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Final Fantasy V

Final Fantasy V Author: Chris Kohler Publisher: Boss Fight Books Publication Year: 2017 Pages: 165 Final Fantasy V is a book about the experience of growing up in…

Contemporary Japanese Literature