Japanese Contemporary History

Japan has seen the rise and fall of emperors, samurai warriors, isolation, expansion, defeat, rebirth, and much more. In this book we explore the magnificent history of Japan from its early origins to its rise as a modern superpower.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER In the spring of 1978, a young Haruki Murakami sat down at his kitchen table and began to write. The result: two remarkable short novels—Hear the Wind Sing and Pinball, 1973—that launched the career of one of the most acclaimed authors of our time. These powerful, at...

Yayoi Kusama has been placing dots on surfaces since 1939. She is still doing it. Every morning, from a psychiatric hospital in Tokyo, she walks across the road to her studio, picks up a brush, and paints. She has been making that walk for nearly fifty years. She is ninety-seven years old. In between, she rewrote the rules. She invented immersive art before the term existed. She anticipated Andy Warhol, outpaced the Minimalists, and was erased from the record by an art world that could not figure out what to do with a Japanese woman who kept being first. She sold mirror balls for two ...

Brought to you by Penguin. WINNER OF THE 2022 AKUTAGAWA PRIZE The power dynamics of the office are never more obvious than when it comes to food: mandatory lunches with the boss, the colleague who tries to curry favour with home-baked goods, discovering the discarded remnants of someone else's...

Brought to you by Penguin. The award-winning, bestselling Japanese phenomenon. A propulsive, prophetic novel about the beauty of language and the nature of identity in the age of AI. Welcome to the Japan of tomorrow. Here, the practice of a radical sympathy toward criminals has become the norm...

Allahabad, early twentieth century. The British rule across India, but Avadhi culture is thriving. In this city where singers, musicians and poets assemble, a star emerges. Janki Bai Ilahabadi enthrals listeners wherever she performs, and counts as her fans maharajas and maharanis, poets and...