Genre: Fiction
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Teach us to outgrow our madness : four short novels
Kenzaburo Oe was ten when American soldiers entered his mountain village during World War II, and his writing “reveals the tension and ambiguity forged by the collapse of the values of his childhood on the one hand and the confrontation with American writers on the other…[His] heroes have been expelled from the certainty of childhood,…
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The Cafeteria in the Evening and a Pool in the Rain
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Sanshiro
One of Soseki’s most beloved works of fiction, the novel depicts the 23-year-old Sanshiro leaving the sleepy countryside for the first time in his life to experience the constantly moving ‘real world’ of Tokyo, its women and university. In the subtle tension between our appreciation of Soseki’s lively humour and our awareness of Sanshiro’s doomed…
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Speculative Japan : Outstanding tales of Japanese science fiction and fantasy
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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…
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Palm-of-the-hand stories
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Spring snow
Kiyoaki Matsugae’s passionate and ill-fated love for the betrothed daughter of a Tokyo aristocrat brings him into disfavor at the Imperial Court.
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Quicksand
The voice is insistent, attractive, persuasive – the voice of a cultured Osaka lady, unfortunately widowed young. Sonoko Kakiuchi’s story, however, is unsettlingly at odds with her image. It is a tale of infatuation and deceit, of deliberate evil. Its theme is humiliation, its victim Sonoko’s mild-mannered lawyer husband. And at its center – seducing,…
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The sea and poison.
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Geisha in rivalry
Against the backdrop of Tokyo’s Shimbashi district, vivid characters Rikiji, Kikuchiyo, and the heroine Komayo play out their drama of illicit love, shady intrigue, and unrelenting rivalry.