Review—Heaven, by Mieko Kawakami

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A heartbreaking, yet uplifting, story of two outcasts who find and protect each other through a year of school bullying.

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A heartbreaking, yet uplifting, story of two outcasts who find and protect each other through a year of school bullying.

Review—Where the Wild Ladies Are

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Witty and exuberant feminist re-tellings of traditional Japanese folktales

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In Matsuda’s collection, familiar ghosts are treated as commonplace: They are neither surprising nor frightening as they comfortably situate themselves in the modern world

Review—Bullet Train, by Kōtarō Isaka

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Shenanigans on the Shinkansen

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An action-packed thriller with mature themes exploring the nature of evil, loyalty, mankind’s weaknesses and the morality of killing.

Review—Multispecies Cities: Solarpunk Urban Futures (Speculative Fiction)

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Twenty-four stories in a collection of climate fiction that seek to imagine what cities might look like in a future of multi-species co-existence and green justice.

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Review by Leanne Ogasawara Set primarily in the Asia-Pacific, the twenty-four stories of this new collection of climate fiction seek to imagine what cities might look like in a future of multi-species co-existence and green justice. Firmly planted in the new genre of solarpunk, the stories are filled with a polyphony of voices—some non-human and More…

Review—Earthlings: A Novel

Opens as a coming-of-age story, evolves into psychological suspense, and settles into dark fantasy and horror.

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Grove Press (October 8, 2020) Review by Tina deBellegarde Earthlings by Sayaka Murata (transl. Ginny Tapley Takemori) is a unique literary experience, one that is impossible to pigeonhole into any specific genre. It opens as a coming-of-age story, evolves into psychological suspense, and settles into dark fantasy and horror. As she did in Convenience Store More…

Review—Klara and the Sun, by Kazuo Ishiguro

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Kazuo’s trademark estrangement paradoxically brings his characters closer to us.

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A Tale of Two Ishiguros Review by Cody Poulton Once upon a time there were two men who shared the same surname and an interest in robots. One of them, Kazuo, left Japan and became a little Englishman, but he always felt like an outsider, which is a good thing for a writer, which is More…

Susan K Burton Interviews Nick Bradley about ‘The Cat and The City’

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Nick Bradley masterfully weaves together seemingly disparate threads to conjure up a vivid tapestry of Tokyo; its glory, its shame, its characters, and a calico cat. -—David Peace

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Interview by Susan Karen Burton I first encountered Nick Bradley in the University of East Anglia campus pub in 2015. We were both studying creative writing and a lecturer had suggested we meet because our area of interest—Japan—was, he stated, somewhat specialized. It was felt that we could use each other’s support. He was right. More…