Yasunari Kawabata's last published novel plumbs the depths of human emotion
Ignore the irony of a tenured Harvard professor railing against the pursuit of excellence and employment security and J. Mark Ramseyer’s book is fun and enlightening. Second-Best Justice: The Virtues of Japanese Private Law, by J. Mark Ramseyer.352 pages THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS, ...
Nourishment means nurturing in Japan, and nowhere does this hold more true than in the daily bento. The Just Bento Cookbook, by Makiko Itoh.128 pages KODANSHA, Nonfiction. Gaining popularity around the world for its many healthy and money-saving benefits, bento is not just for ...
“Fireworks: Nine Profane Pieces” brings together a beguiling mix of first-person narratives from English novelist Angela Carter’s two-year hiatus in Japan at the tail end of the 1960s, and they are as brilliant as they are bizarre. Fireworks, by Angela Carter.153 pages VIRAGO MODERN ...
“The Blue-eyed Salaryman” is Irishman Niall Murtagh’s account of working for Mitsubishi. It’s not quite a tell-all: colleagues’ names are disguised with cute monikers — sometimes a little too cute — such as Kawaii (cute), and Majime (straight-laced), and in keeping with the time-honored ...
The first Japanese winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1968, Yasunari Kawabata, deals with the gradual decline that comes with aging in “The Sound of the Mountain.” The Sound of the Mountain, by Yasunari Kawabata, Translated by Edward G. Seidensticker. 276 pages ...
Ryunosuke Akutagawa is probably best known outside Japan for “Rashomon” but “Kappa” is considered to be his masterpiece by fans and scholars. Narrated by a “mental patient” and introduced as a tale overheard directly by the author, “Kappa” is a fantastical satire in the ...
Any list of Japan’s top 10 films invariably includes the 1954 movie version of “Twenty-four Eyes,” directed by Keisuke Kinoshita and starring Hideko Takamine in one of her signature roles as schoolteacher Hisako Oishi. Twenty-four Eyes, by Sakae Tsuboi, Translated by Akira Miura.256 pages ...
When we read Japanese history it’s easy to forget that the revolutionary changes that washed through the country from the 19th century into the 20th all took place within a single human life span. The River Ki, by Sawako Ariyoshi.256 pages KODANSHA, Fiction. Sawako ...
It takes a brave writer to make their main character as unlikeable as Kensaku Tokito. It is even more startling because Naoya Shiga was consciously writing within the ‘I’ novel tradition, where the author deliberately draws on their life story for source material. A ...
The author of the best-selling “Memories of Silk and Straw” brings the same documentary approach to bear in “Confessions of a Yakuza,” a study of an aging gangster by the name of Eiji Ijichi. Confessions of a Yakuza, by Junichi Saga.272 pages KODANSHA INTERNATIONAL, ...
“Edo and Paris” compares the development of these two great cities of the early modern era. It compiles 19 essays by American, European and Japanese academics, edited by James L. McClain, John M. Merriman and Kaoru Ugawa, professors of history at Brown, Yale and ...
