Modern Japanese Literature

"Brian Nishii narrates this imaginative tale set in Japan about the complexities of death, life, and cats...A brief, charming parable." — AudioFile Magazine The international phenomenon that has sold over a million copies in Japan, If Cats Disappeared from the World--now a Japanese film--is a...

From the bestselling author of Kafka on the Shore: A magnificent coming-of-age story steeped in nostalgia, “a masterly novel” (The New York Times Book Review) blending the music, the mood, and the ethos that were the sixties with a young man’s hopeless and heroic first love. Now with a new...

This collection of three titles from one of America's bestselling authors is available at a special value price. Fine Things Bernie Fine had everything, even what he wanted most, a family. Unfortunately, tragedy strikes and he has to rebuild his life, care for his children and cope with his own...

While intensely attentive to its own tradition, Japanese literature has also embraced the outside world, particularly the influence of China. Beyond this, Japan boasts a powerful literary culture, made up of cultivated reading publics, both aristocratic and bourgeois, literary salons, specialized presses, authoritative judges of talent who cultivated and celebrated particular writers and styles, and a canon consisting of classics. This Very Short Introduction traces the rich history of Japanese literature from its beginnings over a millennium ago to the present day.

"Since time immemorial, India has been an ocean bed over which numerous stories have flowed and enriched the world. Storytellers from Tulsidas to Rohinton Mistry have added their magic to this magnificent repository. Inspired in part by Somadeva’s Kathasaritasagara, William Radice collects...

This is the last novel written by Natsume Soseki (1867-1916), Japan's preeminent modern novelist (which was uncompleted at his death). Translated from the Japanese by V.H. Viglielmo. Susan Sontag called it a neglected masterpiece of the twentieth century. Also contains a new Translator's Afterword

Brought to you by Penguin. An immersive journey through trees in Japan by celebrated writer Aya Koda – now available in English for the first time ‘Trees are not just living things, but feeling beings, like us. Better keep a watchful eye over them…’ Ezo spruce, hinoki, cherry blossoms...

In his highly acclaimed debut, Kazuo Ishiguro tells the story of Etsuko, a Japanese woman now living alone in England, dwelling on the recent suicide of her daughter. Retreating into the past, she finds herself reliving one particular hot summer night in Nagasaki, when she and her friends...

The Innocent: A Landmark in Japanese Literature By Saneatsu Mushanokōji (1885–1976) Translated and introduced by Michael Guest Published with the approval of the author’s estate. Discover The Innocent, the first English translation of Saneatsu Mushanokōji’s 1911 novel Omedetaki Hito (often rendered as The Good-Natured Person). Widely regarded as an early and formative example of the Japanese “I-novel,” this remarkable work explores identity, self-consciousness, and the fragile emergence of the modern self during Japan’s Meiji period — an era of profound cultural ...

Mimei Ogawa, a prolific author of short stories nearly 100 years ago, is considered to be one of the founding figures of modern Japanese children’s literature. He has also been called the Hans Christian Andersen of Japan because of how his works were influenced by Andersen. This collection contains a fresh, modern translation of one of Mimei Ogawa’s most famous works, "The Mermaid and the Red Candles", as well as several other stories that have never been translated and published in English before.

Winner of the 2024 NYPL Young Lions Fiction Award Finalist for the 2024 Washington State Book Award and the 2025 PNBA Book Award “Spare, beautiful and richly layered, The Liberators is dazzling.” ―Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage “A piercing, patient debut by one of our...

「バーチャル世界」で格差を埋める人々が急増「パラサイト・シングル」「希望格差」「婚活」などの言葉を世に出した、稀代の社会学者による現代日本社会の実像私の分析は楽観的なものではない。