japanese literature

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Genre: Fiction

  • Shot by both sides : a novel

    Standing on a Tokyo bridge waiting for a friend, Akaki, a middle-aged Japanese man, indulges in reminiscences that recall his arrival in Tokyo twenty years earlier, his childhood in northern Korea under Japanese rule, and the impact of the trauma of war.

  • Tun-huang : a novel

    More than a thousand years ago, an extraordinary trove of early Buddhist sutras and other scriptures was secreted away in caves near the Silk Road city of Tun-huang. But who hid this magnificent treasure and why? In Tun-huang, the great modern Japanese novelist Yasushi Inoue tells the story of Chao Hsing-te, a young Chinese man…

  • The lord of the sands of time

    Sixty-two years after human life on Earth was annihilated by rampaging alien invaders, the enigmatic Messenger O is sent back in time with a mission to unite humanity of past eras–during the Second World War and ancient Japan, and even back to the dawn of the species itself–to defeat the invasion before it begins. However,…

  • March was made of yarn : reflections on the Japanese earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown

    On March 11, 2011, a massive earthquake occurred off the northeastern coast of Japan, triggering a 50-foot tsunami that crushed everything in its path—highways, airports, villages, trains, and buses—leaving death and destruction behind, and causing a major radiation leak from five nuclear plants. Here eighteen writers give us their trenchant observations and emotional responses to…

  • The budding tree : six stories of love in Edo

    In the latter half of the Edo period, the warrior caste was finding itself pushed out of the top echelons of Japanese society & repeated famines swept the countryside. Against this backdrop, a small number of women built themselves independent lives. The stories in this book recount the conditions in which these women lived.

  • Wind and waves : a novel

  • The next continent

    A private mission to the moon is one woman’s destiny.

  • The Ten Foot Square Hut and Tales of the Heike

    Readers of medieval Japanese literature have long been captivated by its romance and philosophy. In this volume, two acclaimed thirteenth century classics, The Ten Foot Square Hut and Tales of the Heike, are presented in translation. The Ten Foot Square Hut offers the memorable reflections of a recluse who retired from a world filled with…

  • The adventures of Sumiyakist Q

  • Bødy

    As indicated by the title, Bødy is a collection of horror stories, all thematically linked to people’s perception of their bodies, and the consequences of vanity and low self-esteem. In the vein of the psychological suspense of the Twilight Zone, each story ends with a shock, leaving the reader unsettled with the old adage, “Be…