We love Murakami, and all the cats, jazz, whiskey bars, mysterious women, and glimpses at modern Japanese life that populate his books. But there’s a world of magnificent novels out there by Japanese authors who don’t receive as much U.S. press for their work. If you’ve already devoured Murakami’s story collections (like ) and his acclaimed novels (including, and ), it’s time to add these contemporary Japanese books to your end-of-summer reading list.
There’s something for everyone: mysteries and thrillers, teen horror, relationship dramas, and twisted, yakuza-related crime stories, all taking place in locales that may be unfamiliar to American readers. Each will get your imagination churning and your passport begging for stamps. Here’s a sample of our favorite modern books from the land of the rising sun. Paperback $15.26 $16.95, by Natsuo Kirino (translated by Stephen Snyder)Written in omniscient-narrator style, with multiple POVs, this book will appeal to fans of Breaking Bad and Quentin Tarantino. Novecento wide medium font. It’s smart, darkly comedic, and shockingly violent—but this time, a group of ladies are the ones taking names, leaving body counts, and, well, chopping up the evidence.
Meet Masako, Kuniko, Yoshie, and Yayoi, four women who work the midnight to 5:30 a.m. Shift at a boxed lunch factory.
Respectively, they are the mother of a hikikomori teenage recluse; a materialistic, selfish woman in debt up to her eyelids; a cash-strapped widow caring for an ungrateful mother-in-law; and a young wife seething with resentment toward her abusive, unfaithful husband. Will they get away with murder? And will we root for them or against them? Paperback $7.99, by Hiroshi Ishizaki (translated by Richard Kim)In this fast-paced YA book filled with twists and turns, a lonely teenage girl named Sawako is immediately intrigued by the subject of an email message: “Would you like to create a fictional world?” Three more teen girls with diverse interests soon join the online game, the objective of which is to co-write a story about a girl, her tutor/boyfriend, her stalker, and the detective who’s tracking the stalker. Each girl assumes the POV and identity of the character she has opted to write. However, at least one of the girls is not who she claims to be, and the story being written may not be mere fantasy.
As the rules of the game state, “It’ll seem so real that if anyone who didn’t know what it was read it, it would terrify them.”. Hardcover $23.39 $25.99, by Keigo Higashino (translated by Alexander O. Smith)An internationally bestselling author, Higashino is best known for his Detective Galileo novels. If you like mysteries in which an outsider with a unique profession sheds light on a case, you’ll love A Midsummer’s Equation. While visiting the beautiful but struggling coastal town of Hari Cove during a controversial time in its history (a corporation is destroying the coastline with its hydrothermal ore mining), associate physics professor Manabu Yukawa solves not one but two related murders that occured 16 years apart.
The most recent victim is a retired cop, and his former colleagues are determined to bring justice to their fallen brother. Yukama’s attitude says it all: “The world is full of mysteries. And the joy of uncovering even the slightest mystery is incomparable to any other joy you will ever know.”. Paperback $14.40 $16.00, by Banana Yoshimoto (translated by Megan Backus)An exquisitely written, ultimately hopeful novel about grief by an author whose prose has been compared to that of Marguerite Dumas and Anne Tyler, this book is slim but absolutely packed with emotion about love and loss.
Our main character, Mikage, has lost every member of her family but is welcomed into the affectionate home of a young man, Yuichi, and his transgender mother, Eriko, who runs a gay night club. Mikage teaches herself to cook, and the process becomes a passion, an art, and a lifestyle that helps her work through her pain: “Perhaps because to me a kitchen represents some distant longing engraved on my soul.” Her relationships with Yuichi and Eriko are tender, bittersweet, and unforgettable. NOOK Book $11.49 $14.99, by Hiromi Kawakami (translated by Michael Emmerich)A breathtaking literary achievement that reminded me at times of Catherine Lacey’s Nobody is Ever Missing, this novel asks the question, “When someone disappears from your life, are they ever really gone?” Twelve years after her beloved husband, Rei, vanishes without warning, Kei finds herself traveling repeatedly to a quiet beach town called Manazuru, where she feels her husband’s presence for reasons she can’t explain.
In the decade since he left, she has been raising their daughter, Momo, at her mother’s house, and has taken a lover at work. She has long had the suspicion that she’s being followed, and in Manazuru that sensation rises to a level she can no longer ignore. While contemplating her long-ago courtship with Rei, her daughter’s growth from infant to 9th grader, and her changing relationship with her memories, Kei attempts to come to terms with the course her life has taken.
A surreal, deeply moving book. Paperback $13.33 $14.95, by Fuminori Nakamura (translated by Satoko Izumo and Stephen Coates)With his mentor gone, his girlfriend dead, and his own days seemingly numbered, a master pickpocket winds his way through the streets of Tokyo, targeting wealthy businessmen.
Our antihero with a Robin Hood–style sense of morality takes under his wing a kid who’s forced to shoplift and needs help with technique. But he remains haunted by a home invasion and burglary he participated in that ripped his mentor from him.
He spends his nights ruminating on what becomes of a man without societal ties: “I favored action over inaction, the path which would lead me away from the world.” At times the book reads like Albert Camus crossed with Elmore Leonard, yet the narrative voice is distinctly its own, and Nakamura has racked up several awards for his work. Descriptions of sleight of hand paired with philosophical musings make for a terrific read and fascinating exploration of what it means to be a criminal. Paperback $15.95, by Kenzaburō Ōe (translated by Deborah Boliver Boehm)Ōe received the Nobel Prize in Literature for this book in 1994. When Kogito’s estranged brother-in-law and childhood best friend, Goro, sends Kogito 40 cassette tapes of himself having a one-sided conversation about their relationship, Kogito listens to them as part of a nightly ritual. Both men make their living in the arts.
Goro is a famous actor and filmmaker, Kogito an acclaimed novelist. They haven’t been close in years, and Kogito misses their lengthy talks and former closeness. A particularly chilling remark recorded toward the end of the tapes—”I’m going to head over to the Other Side now” (followed by an ominous thud)—turns out to be the moment Goro has committed suicide. Kogito becomes obsessed with listening to the tapes and responding to them verbally, in an attempt to uncover the reasons behind Goro’s desperate act. Kogito’s internal journey takes him into the past, and the moment their rift widened beyond repair.
Here is a deftly written thriller that is also a 'deep and moody' (NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW) journey through the dark side of Japan's consumer-crazed society. Ordinary people plunge into insurmountable personal debt and fall prey to dangerous webs of underground creditors-so dangerous, in fact, that murder may be the only way out. Young woman vanishes, and the detective quickly finds she is not whom she claims to be.
Is she a victim, a killer, or both? In a country that tracks its citizens at every turn, how can two women claim the same identity and then disappear without a trace? Japanese mystery about a police detective currently on medical leave and a private investigation he undertakes for his nephew, whose fiancee has disappeared after an argument they had.
The investigation leads Honma into the murky world of excessive credit card debt, bankruptcy, identity theft and murder. Very enjoyable read-I always like getting immersed in the culture of a different country and enjoy the authenticity that an author who is a native of that country provides. The mystery was also very intriguing, and I liked the main character a lot. Unfortunately, I believe the author doesn't write series books, just stand-alones, but I enjoyed this enough to seek out more by the same author even though I probably won't be meeting the main character again. I was not blown away by this book. I read it shortly after reading Natsuo Kirino's Out, which has maybe influenced my opinion.All She Was Worth was an easy read, taking me about four days worth of work breaks to finish.
At parts I felt like I was sitting in on a lecture on Japan's Economy rather than reading a crime novel, and the ending was largely unsatisfactory. Still, I did like the way it unraveled, and there were twists that I was unprepared for.
Worth a swap credit, but I'm glad I didn't buy it.
Contents.Early life and education Miyabe was born in Tokyo, Japan in 1960. Her mother was a seamstress and her father was an assembly line worker at a factory. She graduated from High School, then attended a business training school before taking an administrative job at a law office. Career Miyabe started writing novels at the age of 23.
In 1984, while working at a law office, Miyabe began to take writing classes at a writing school run by the publishing company. She made her literary debut in 1987 with 'Warera ga rinjin no hanzai' (我らが隣人の犯罪), which won the 26th All Yomimono Mystery Novel Newcomer Prize. She has since written dozens of novels and won numerous literary prizes.Miyabe's novel All She Was Worth ( 火車, Kasha), set at the beginning of Japan's and telling the story of a Tokyo police inspector's search for a missing woman who might be an identity thief trying to get clear of debt, was published by in 1992. The next year Kasha won the, which is awarded for a new literary work that excels at storytelling in any genre. Kasha was adapted into a television movie by in 1994, then again in 2011. Is game cloner safe. The Japanese version of the book sold millions of copies. An English translation of Kasha, translated by, was published by International under the title All She Was Worth in 1997.
Marilyn Stasio of positively noted the relationship between the 'spare style and measured pace' of Birnbaum's translation and the 'somber tone of Miyuki's theme' of individual value in a consumerist economy, while Cameron Barr of wrote that the book's treatment of privacy and data tracking would leave the impression that 'personal privacy is a rickety antique.' The Reason ( 理由, Riyū), a multiple perspective murder mystery set in Tokyo's and written in the form of research interviews conducted in mostly polite language with the suspect, neighbors, and family members of the victims, was published in book form in 1998. Riyū won the 17th in the Japanese novel category that same year. In 1999 Riyū won the 120th. Scholar Noriko Chino has described Riyū as 'one of the masterpieces of postwar fictional social criticism.'
Riyū was adapted into a movie that was first shown on the television channel before its 2004 theatrical release.Miyabe's novel ( クロスファイア, Kurosufaia), about a police detective pursuing a girl with pyrokinetic powers, was published in the same year as Riyū. It was adapted into the 2000 film, starring. An English version of Crossfire, translated by Deborah Stuhr Iwabuchi and Anna Husson Isozaki, was published in 2006, with calling it 'the most conventional of her three novels translated into English'.
In 2003 published Miyabe's fantasy novel, a story about a boy with a troubled home life who finds a portal to another world. Brave Story became a bestseller in Japan, and has since been adapted into an film, a series, and a series of video games. The English version of the novel, translated by Alexander O.
Smith, won the in 2008. Writing style Miyabe has written novels in several different genres, including science fiction,. Outside of Japan she is better known for her crime and fantasy novels. English translations of her work include (クロスファイア), published in 1998, and Kasha (火車), translated by as, published in 1999. Literary scholar Amanda Seaman called Kasha 'a watershed moment in the history of women's detective fiction' that inspired 'a new wave of women mystery writers.' A common theme in Miyabe's work is community, particularly the effects of consumerism in Japanese society on family and community relationships. This section needs additional citations for.
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Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.Find sources: – ( March 2019). Shuku Satsujin (1988). Majutsu wa sasayaku (TV movie), 1990. Saboten no Hana (1991). Unmei no Juko (based on 'Snark Gari')(1992). Tatta Hitori (1992). Henshin (1993).
Kasha: Kādo hasan no onna!
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