japanese literature

in english

search japanese books translated into english:

Translator: Lammers, Wayne P.

  • The shadow of a blue cat : a novel

    Businessman Yuki Yajima is fifty-one years old. He and his wife, Asako, are the parents of two daughters: Ryo, seventeen, and Yuka, an infant of only two months. Asking himself why he’s allowed himself to become a father again at his age, Yuki begins to remember his uncle, who died quite young–younger, indeed, than Yuki…

  • Spinning tropics : a novel

    When Yun becomes one of Hiro’s students, they are instantly drawn to each other. Hiro is a young Japanese woman who has recently moved to Vietnam to be a language teacher, and Yun is a shy, young Vietnamese woman studying Japanese, determined to make a better life for herself. For both of them, it is…

  • Woman on the other shore

    This compelling novel, widely acclaimed for its perceptive portrayal of the everyday lives and struggles of Japanese women, struck a deep chord with readers throughout Japan. In 2005 it won the prestigious Naoki Prize, awarded semiannually for the best work of popular fiction by an established writer. Sayoko, a thirty-five-year-old homemaker with a three-year-old child,…

  • Undercurrents : episodes from a life on the edge

    Assembles 40 episodes that represent the times the author felt most alive, involving his two passions: sailing and scuba diving.

  • Strangers

    When jaded 48-year-old scriptwriter Harada visits Tokyo’s old entertainment district where he grew up, he encounters a likeable working man who is the spitting image of his dead father. Lonely, nostalgic, and willing to believe the unbelievable, Harada follows the mysterious man, embarking on a bittersweet journey into the womb of a city whose living…

  • Evening clouds

    A “snapshot” of daily life in 1960s Tokyo.

  • Taken captive : a Japanese POW’s story

    On January 25, 1945, Private Ooka Shohei of the Japanese Imperial Army was captured by American forces in the Philippines. Near death from starvation and acute malaria, he was nursed back to health by his captors and shipped off to a POW camp. Taken Captive is his powerful and poignant account of life as a…

  • Still life and other stories

    This is a collection of delicate tales which reveal the flow of life in the modern Japanese family, the accidental pleasures and the unexplained misfortune.

  • The tale of Matsura : Fujiwara Teika’s experiment in fiction

    Complete translation of a Japanese courtly tale from the 12th century, with extensive annotation, introduction, critical essay, and appendixes.