Genre: Fiction
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The Trial of Pak Tal and other stories
The so-called Zainichi Korean diaspora in Japan is a large and diverse community with a long and painful history that began with the Japanese colonization of Korea (1910-1945). One of the most prolific and influential Zainichi Korean writers in Japan, Kim Tal-su (1920-1997) left behind a wide body of work depicting the many social and…
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Lady Joker, Volume Two
This second half of Lady Joker, by Kaoru Takamura, the Grand Dame of Japanese crime fiction, concludes the breathtaking saga introduced in Volume I.Inspired by the real-life Glico-Morinaga kidnapping, an unsolved case that terrorized Japan for two years, Lady Joker reimagines the circumstances of this watershed episode in modern Japanese history and brings into riveting focus the lives…
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Lady Joker, Volume One
Tokyo, 1995. Five men meet at the racetrack every Sunday to bet on horses. They have little in common except a deep disaffection with their lives, but together they represent the social struggles and griefs of post-War Japan: a poorly socialized genius stuck working as a welder; a demoted detective with a chip on his…
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Kappa
The Kappa is a creature from Japanese folklore known for dragging unwary toddlers to their deaths in rivers: a scaly, child-sized creature, looking something like a frog, but with a sharp, pointed beak and an oval-shaped saucer on top of its head, which hardens with age.Akutagawa’s Kappa is narrated by Patient No. 23, a madman in a…
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The Boy in the Earth
As an unnamed Tokyo taxi driver works a night shift, picking up fares that offer him glimpses into the lives of ordinary people, he can’t escape his own nihilistic thoughts. Almost without meaning to, he puts himself in harm’s way; he can’t stop daydreaming of suicide, envisioning himself returning to the earth in obsessive fantasies…
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The Gun
On a nighttime walk along a Tokyo riverbank, a young man named Nishikawa stumbles on a dead body, beside which lies a gun. From the moment Nishikawa decides to take the gun, the world around him blurs. Knowing he possesses the weapon brings an intoxicating sense of purpose to his dull university life. But soon…
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Parade
On a summer afternoon, Tsukiko and her former high school teacher have prepared and eaten somen noodles together. ‘Tell me a story from long ago, ‘ Sensei says. ‘I wasn’t alive long ago,’ Tsukiko says, ‘but should I tell you a story from when I was little?’ ‘Please do,’ Sensei replies, and so Tsukiko tells…
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The Ten Loves of Nishino
Hiromi Kawakami tells the story of an enigmatic man through the voices of ten remarkable women who have known him. Each woman has succumbed, even if only for an hour, to the seductive, imprudent, and furtively feline man who drifted so naturally into their lives. Still clinging to the vivid memory of his warm breath…
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The Nakano Thrift Shop
The objects for sale at the Nakano Thrift Shop appear as commonplace as the staff and customers who handle them. But like those staff and customers, they hold many secrets. If examined carefully, they show the signs of innumerable extravagances, of immeasurable pleasure and pain, and of the deep mysteries of the human heart. Hitomi,…
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Strange Weather in Tokyo
Tsukiko, thirty-eight, works in an office and lives alone. One night, she happens to meet one of her former high school teachers, “Sensei,” in a local bar. Tsukiko had only ever called him “Sensei” (“Teacher”). He is thirty years her senior, retired, and presumably a widower. Their relationship develops from a perfunctory acknowledgment of each…