(Feature photo by Joshua Chun on Unsplash) An excerpt from Tokyo Tales: A Collection of Japanese Short Stories By Renae Lucas-Hall ‘I’m twenty-one years old and I’ve been working part-time for a fashion shop in Yokohama for two years but now I’d really like to work for My Cute Kawaii Boutique,’ I told Junko, More…
(Feature photo: “The Red Room” by Lucy Pulvers) Peaceful Circumstances is the story of Karen, a twenty-one-year-old white woman from Los Angeles. Sitting beside the hospital bed of her father, who is in a coma, she is convinced that he can hear her; so, over a single night, she tells him what happened to her More…
A Mind-Changing Interpretation of Japanese Aesthetics In Praise of Shadows, by Junichirō Tanizaki (translated by T. J. Harper & E. Seidensticker) Vintage Classics, Nov. 2019. Reviewed by Renae Lucas-Hall A new fully-illustrated release of In Praise of Shadows by Junichirō Tanizaki, translated by Thomas J. Harper and Edward G. Seidensticker, has just been published by More…
In this issue of Books on Asia, we explore disasters of all kinds from earthquakes, tsunami and volcanic eruptions to dictatorships, religious prosecution, crimes and environmental hazards. The issue spans major events in Japan, the Koreas, Thailand, and Indonesia. The Hon Podcast features an interview with journalist and Times correspondent Richard Lloyd Parry. Podcast host More…
(“Tree” photo credit: gratisography) Translation by Hiroaki Sato (For Sumiko’s birthday) God is, even if He is not. Also He is humorous enough to resemble some kind of man. This time with a gigantic phallus over the horizon of my dream He came on a picnic. Incidentally I regret that I did nothing for Sumiko More…
(Illustration by Rebecca Otowa) An excerpt from The Mad Kyoto Shoe Swapper and other Short Stories from Japan By Rebecca Otowa Tuttle Publishing (March, 2020) I hate my dad. Every day of my life when I was a kid, he used to beat me. Some days it was just a tap across the face More…
Forty Years of Murakami—Anniversary Issue! Haruki Murakami is Japan’s best-known contemporary Japanese author. Born in Kyoto in 1949, he grew up in Ashiya, Kobe and went on to attend Waseda University in Tokyo. His books have been translated into more than fifty languages. In addition to novels in the genre of magical realism, Murakami also More…
Twentieth Century Surrealism Tempered by Literary Discipline Beneath the Sleepless Tossing of the Planets: Selected Poems by Makoto Ōoka translated by Janine Beichman (Kurodahan Press, 2019) Review by Christopher Blasdel The title of this magnificently translated volume of poetry by the recently deceased Japanese poet Makoto Ōoka immediately conjures a sense of the surreal. Even More…
The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa (translated by Stephen Snyder) (Pantheon, Random House August 13, 2019) Reviewed by Renae Lucas-Hall This internationally-acclaimed writer transports you to a disturbing dystopian island where everyone and everything gradually disappears, leaving its vulnerable inhabitants at the mercy of a terrifying totalitarian regime. Imagine, if you will, waking up knowing More…
By Amy Chavez The Nakasendo was an Edo Period (1603-1868) road used for travel between the capital of Edo (Tokyo) and Kyoto, the former capital. The 69 post towns along the way provided accommodation and services to daimyo and their entourages, who passed through on their sankin kōtai biennial visits to the Tokugawa shogunate. I’m More…
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