japanese literature

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Author: Yoshimoto Banana

  • Kitchen

    Full-fledged phenomenon: a young writer of great talent and great passion whose work has quickly earned a place among the best of twentieth-century Japanese literature. Banana Yoshimoto’s Kitchen is an enchantingly original and deeply affecting book that juxtaposes two tales about mothers, transsexuality, kitchens, love, tragedy, and the terms they all come to in the…

  • Asleep

    Already an international bestseller, “Asleep” comprises three novellas of women bewitched into a spiritual sleep. One, mourning a lost lover, finds herself sleepwalking. Another, who has embarked on a relationship with a man whose wife is in a coma, finds herself suddenly unable to stay awake. And a third finds her sleep haunted by a…

  • Goodbye, Tsugumi : a novel

    Having grown up by the sea with her invalid cousin Tsugumi, Maria moves to Tokyo and encounters university life and impending adulthood, and spending a last summer with her cousin, she comes to a new understanding about home and family.

  • NP

    The lives of people in both straight and lesbian relationships, all with connections to a book entitled NP. They include the author’s children and the translator’s mistress. Written by one of Japan’s leading pop writers.

  • Lizard

    Six short stories by a Japanese woman writer known for her unusual themes. In Blood and Water, a woman abandons the religious commune where she was raised, goes to the big city and finds another idol of worship, a charismatic lover. The story looks at the connection between spiritual and romantic fervor. By the author…

  • Amrita

    A Japanese woman’s struggle to regain her memory. She is Saku-chan, a barmaid who suffered a head injury in a fall. She meets her dead sister’s lover and the two have an affair which helps her recover. By the author of Lizard.

  • Hardboiled ; & Hard luck

    Presents two novellas, one about a young woman’s dream about an ex-lover while on a hiking trip, and the other about the sister of a woman lying in a coma.

  • The lake

    The tale of a young woman who moves to Tokyo after the death of her mother, hoping to get over her grief and start a career as a graphic artist.