Staff Picks
#BroaderBookshelf 2023 - Books Written by Japanese Authors
- Ariel H.
- Saturday, January 28, 2023
Collection
Fulfill the "Read a book written by an author of Chinese, Japanese, Korean or Vietnamese descent" prompt with these titles.
This list is part of the #BroaderBookshelf 2023 reading challenge. Find more lists here.
The Woman in the Dunes
Published in 1991
In this famous postwar Japanese novel, the first of Abe's to be translated into English, Niki Jumpei, an amateur entomologist in pursuit of a rare specimen of beetle, wanders into a strange seaside village, whose residents all live in sandpits. He is taken prisoner, and, along with a widow cast out by the community, he is forced to move into her sandpit and continually shovel away the sand that threatens to take over the village. In Niki's struggles to escape his prison and his developing relationship with the woman, he gradually comes to understand the existential nature of life.
Goodnight Punpun. Vol. 03
Published in 2016
A Japanese manga written and illustrated by Inio Asano about Onodera Punpun, a normal child depicted in the form of a bird. The story follows him as he copes with his dysfunctional family and friends, his love interest, his oncoming adolescence and his hyperactive mind.
Goodnight Punpun. Vol. 1
Published in 2016
A Japanese manga written and illustrated by Inio Asano about Onodera Punpun, a normal child depicted in the form of a bird. The story follows him as he copes with his dysfunctional family and friends, his love interest, his oncoming adolescence and his hyperactive mind.
No Longer Human
Published in 1973
"Tells the poignant and fascinating semi-autobiographical story of a young man who is caught between the breakup of the traditions of a northern Japanese aristocratic family and the impact of Western ideas.. Oba Yozo's attempts to reconcile himself to the world around him begin in early childhood, continue through high school, where he becomes a 'clown' to mask his alienation, and eventually lead to a failed suicide attempt as an adult. Without sentimentality, he records the casual cruelties of life and its fleeting moments of human connection and tenderness.."--Publisher.
The Reason I Jump
The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-year-old Boy with Autism
Published in 2013
Written by a very smart, very self-aware, and very charming thirteen-year-old boy with autism, this is a one-of-a-kind memoir that demonstrates how an autistic mind thinks, feels, perceives, and responds in ways few of us can imagine. Parents and family members who never thought they could get inside the head of their autistic loved one at last have a way to break through to the curious, subtle, and complex life within. With disarming honesty and a generous heart, Naoki shares his unique point of view on not only autism but life itself. His insights--into the mystery of words, the wonders of laughter, and the elusiveness of memory--are so startling, so strange, and so powerful that you will never look at the world the same way again. In his introduction, bestselling novelist David Mitchell writes that Naoki's words allowed him to feel, for the first time, as if his own autistic child was explaining what was happening in his mind. This translation was a labor of love by David and his wife, KA Yoshida, so they'd be able to share that feeling with friends, the wider autism community, and beyond.--From publisher description.
The Devotion of Suspect X
Published in 2011
Yasuko Hanaoka thought she had escaped her abusive ex-husband Togashi. When he shows up one day, the situation quickly escalates and Togashi ends up dead. Yasuko's next-door-neighbor Ishigami offers his help, not only disposing of the body, but plotting the cover-up as well.
The Woman in the Purple Skirt
A Novel
Published in 2021
"A bestselling, prizewinning novel of obsession and psychological intrigue about two enigmatic unmarried women, one of whom manipulates the other from afar, by one of Japan's most acclaimed young writers"-- Provided by publisher.
An Artist of the Floating World
Published in 1989
World War II is over and Japan sets about rebuilding her shattered cities. Masuji Ono, an aging painter, looks back over his life and assesses a career that coincided with the rise of Japanese militarism.
Snow Country
Published in 1996
With the brushstroke suggestiveness and astonishing grasp of motive that won him the Nobel Prize for Literature, Yasunari Kawabata tells a story of wasted love set amid the desolate beauty of western Japan, the snowiest region on earth. It is there, at an isolated mountain hotspring, that the wealthy sophisticate Shimamura meets the geisha Komako, who gives herself to him without regrets, knowing that their passion cannot last. Shimamura is a dilettante of the feelings; Komako has staked her life on them. Their affair can have only one outcome. Yet, in chronicling its doomed course, one of Japan's greatest modern writers creates a novel dense in implication and exalting in its sadness.
Breasts and Eggs
Published in 2021
It tells the story of three women: the thirty-year-old unmarried narrator, her older sister Makiko, and Makiko's daughter Midoriko. Unable to come to terms with her changed body after giving birth, Makiko becomes obsessed with the prospect of getting breast enhancement surgery. Meanwhile, her twelve-year-old daughter Midoriko is paralyzed by the fear of her oncoming puberty and finds herself unable to voice the vague, yet overwhelming anxieties associated with growing up. The narrator, who remains unnamed for most of the story, struggles with her own indeterminable identity of being neither a "daughter" nor a "mother." Set over three stiflingly hot days in Tokyo, the book tells of a reunion of sorts, between two sisters, and the passage into womanhood of young Midoriko.
The Lonesome Bodybuilder
Stories
Published in 2018
Motoya's collection of stories features individuals who lift the curtains of their orderly homes and workplaces, only to be confronted by the bizarre, the grotesque, the fantastic-- yet somehow find a doorway to liberation. -- adapted from back cover
Earthlings
A Novel
Published in 2020
"As a child, Natsuki doesn't fit into her family. Her parents favor her sister, and her best friend is a plush toy hedgehog named Piyyut who has explained to her that he has come from the planet Popinpobopia on a special quest to help her save the Earth.Each summer, Natsuki counts down the days until her family drives into the mountains of Nagano to visit her grandparents in their wooden house in the forest. One summer, her cousin Yuu confides to Natsuki that he is an extraterrestrial, and Natsuki startsto wonder if she might be an alien too. Later, as a married woman, Natsuki feels forced to fit in to a society she deems a "baby factory" but wonders if there is more to the world than the mundane reality everyone else seems to accept. The answers are out there, and Natsuki has the power to find them. Dreamlike, sometimes shocking, and always strange and wonderful, Earthlings asks what it means to be happy in a stifling world, and cements Sayaka Murata's status as a master chronicler of the outsider experience and our own uncanny universe"-- Provided by publisher.
The Memory Police
Published in 2019
"A deft and dark Orwellian novel about the terrors of state surveillance, from the acclaimed author of The Housekeeper and the Professor On an unnamed island off an unnamed coast, things are disappearing. First, animals and flowers. Then objects--ribbons, bells, photographs. Then, body parts. Most of the island's inhabitants fail to notice these changes, while those few imbued with the power to recall the lost objects live in fear of the mysterious 'memory police,' who are committed to ensuring that the disappeared remain forgotten. When a young novelist realizes that more than her career is in danger, she hides her editor beneath her floorboards, and together, as fear and loss close in around them, they cling to literature as the last way of preserving the past. Part allegory, part literary thriller, The Memory Police is a stunning new work from one of the most exciting contemporary authors writing in any language"-- Provided by publisher.
The Book of Tea
Classic Edition.
Published in 2012
In 1906 in turn-of-the century Boston, a small, esoteric book about tea was written with the intention of being read aloud in the famous salon of Isabella Gardner. It was authored by Okakura Kakuzo, a Japanese philosopher, art expert, and curator. Little known at the time, Kakuzo would emerge as one of the great thinkers of the early 20th century, a genius who was insightful, witty?and greatly responsible for bridging Western and Eastern cultures.Nearly a century later, Kakuzo's The Book of Tea is still beloved the world over. Interwoven with a rich history of tea and its place in Japanese soc
Ring
Published in 2004
Journalist Kazayuki Asakawa's investigation into the sudden deaths of four teenagers from heart failure leads to an isolated cabin containing a videotape warning of death in seven days unless certain, now missing, instructions are not followed.
Battle Royale
Published in 2003
In a country ruled by a ruthless totalitarian government, a group of ninth-grade students are confined to a small isolated island where they must fight each other for three days until only one survivor remains, as part of the ultimate in reality television.
Territory of Light
Published in 2019
"From one of the most significant contemporary Japanese writers, a haunting, dazzling novel of loss and rebirth"-- Provided by publisher.
Tokyo Ueno Station
Published in 2020
"A surreal, devastating story of a homeless ghost who haunts one of Tokyo's busiest train stations. Kazu is dead. Born in Fukushima in 1933, the same year as the Japanese Emperor, his life is tied by a series of coincidences to the Imperial family and has been shaped at every turn by modern Japanese history. But his life story is also marked by bad luck, and now, in death, he is unable to rest, doomed to haunt the park near Ueno Station in Tokyo. Kazu's life in the city began and ended in that park; he arrived there to work as a laborer in the preparations for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and ended his days living in the vast homeless village in the park, traumatized by the destruction of the 2011 tsunami and shattered by the announcement of the 2020 Olympics. Through Kazu's eyes, we see daily life in Tokyo buzz around him and learn the intimate details of his personal story, how loss and society's inequalities and constrictions spiraled towards this ghostly fate, with moments of beauty and grace just out of reach. A powerful masterwork from one of Japan's most brilliant outsider writers, Tokyo Ueno Station is a book for our times and a look into a marginalized existence in a shiny global megapolis"-- Provided by publisher.