Iain Maloney - The Japan Times

CULTURE / Books

Aug 6, 2016

In "The Long Defeat," Akiko Hashimoto explores how Japan's World War II loss has been remembered. More sociologist than historian, she does this by looking beyond political speeches and newspaper editorials and examines how memories manifest in the media, in classrooms and in the home.

CULTURE / Books

Jul 16, 2016

'When I Whistle': A tale from the war between the spiritual and material

In Endo Shusaku's 1974 novel "When I Whistle," businessman Ozu recalls his youth in the days before World War II, after he happens to meet an old friend. Meanwhile, his doctor son, Eiichi, is ruthlessly advancing his career through dishonesty and some highly immoral medical practices. The novel moves back and forth between the lives of the father and son.

CULTURE / Books

Jul 2, 2016

'A Quiet Place': One of Japan's great crime writers turns pale

Celebrated crime writer Seicho Matsumoto penned hundreds of works in his lifetime but so far only a handful have made it into English, which means the publication of a new novel should be cause for celebration.

CULTURE / Books

Jun 25, 2016

'The Company and the Shogun': A different side to the Dutch East India Co.

"The Company and the Shogun" is an absorbing book about the relationship between Dutch traders in Japan and the Tokugawa Shogunate during the 17th century. Rather than providing an overview of the period, author Adam Clulow focuses on a handful of flashpoints where the Dutch East India Co. (VOC) and the Shogunate came into conflict.

CULTURE / Books

Jun 18, 2016

Lian Hearn's newest fantasy brings "Game of Thrones"-style intrigue to ancient Japan

The second book in "The Tale of Shikanoko," Lian Hearn's four-part fantasy series, necessarily suffers from having neither a real beginning nor an end. "Autumn Princess, Dragon Child" spends most of its time picking up the pieces left over from the previous denouement and getting everybody in position for the coming climax. It is a book that cannot stand alone and requires a good grasp of the various characters and their shifting loyalties.

CULTURE / Books

May 7, 2016

'The Translation of Love' is a vivid tale of loss set in the rubble of postwar Tokyo

Lynne Kutsukake's debut novel, "The Translation of Love," is a heady blend of detailed historical research and compelling storytelling. Set in postwar Tokyo during the U.S. Occupation, the novel follows an ensemble cast as they try to come to terms with their survival, personal loss and potential futures.

CULTURE / Books

Apr 9, 2016

'A Midsummer's Equation' takes the blood and madness out of murder

"A Midsummer's Equation," the sixth book in prolific crime writer Keigo Higashino's "Detective Galileo" series, sees physicist and amateur sleuth Manabu Yukawa relocate to a sleepy seaside town in Shizuoka Prefecture. There to act as a scientific adviser on a controversial underwater drilling project that threatens the beautiful coastline, he is quickly drawn into an investigation of murders old and new when a fellow guest at his inn is found dead.

CULTURE / Books

Apr 2, 2016

'A Quiet Life' shows a dark, different side to Kenzaburo Oe

With Kenzaburo Oe's latest novel, "Death by Water," on the longlist of the Man Booker International Prize this year, the Nobel laureate's work is again receiving the global attention it richly deserves.

CULTURE / Books

Apr 2, 2016

'Emperor of the Eight Islands' reveals a Japan populated by spirits, ghosts and gods

Under the pseudonym "Lian Hearn," Gillian Rubinstein has published six novels set in a fantastical version of Japan's past, most notably the popular "Tales of the Otori" series. "Emperor of the Eight Islands" is the first in a new four-part series called "The Tale of Shikanoko" that will be published over the course of 2016.

CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES

Mar 26, 2016

'Somersault' shows Kenzaburo Oe tackling Japan's terror cults

Haruki Murakami has said that 1995 was the year when many of Japan's certainties were destroyed. In January of that year, the Great Hanshin Earthquake killed 6,434 people and then in March, local doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo released sarin gas in the Tokyo subway, killing 12 and injuring many others.

CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES

Feb 13, 2016

After the Banquet

Considering Yukio Mishima's reputation, it seems odd that a book as innocuous as "After the Banquet" could have had such an impact. The novel tells the story of Kazu, the owner of a restaurant frequented by the rich and powerful of Tokyo society, and Noguchi, a semi-retired politician. They marry, but the prospect of happiness is derailed when Noguchi is convinced to run for office once more. Kazu is an independent woman, with a vitality ill-matched to the demure role Noguchi expects of her. Inevitably Noguchi loses, in part because of a pamphlet circulated detailing Kazu's less-than-perfect past. When he learns she is eliciting investment capital from his political rivals, the marriage is over.

CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES

Jan 30, 2016

The Silent Cry

On the surface "The Silent Cry"— first published in 1967 — is the story of Matsu, his wife Natsu and his brother Takashi, who return to the Shikoku village of their birth to negotiate the sale of some family property to "the Emperor of Supermarkets," a Korean brought to Shikoku as a slave during World War II who has since come to dominate the village. Takashi soon organizes the local youth and leads a rebellion against "the Emperor" while Matsu picks apart the secrets of his own family's past. But as always with Oe, the story is only the beginning.

CULTURE / Books

Jan 16, 2016

Up From The Sea

March 11 this year will mark the fifth anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami. Thus far, English-language literature has been slow to tackle the disaster. "Up From the Sea" by Tokyo-based Californian writer Leza Lowitz is, therefore, a welcome arrival.

CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES

Dec 12, 2015

Bedtime Eyes

A direct influence on authors Risa Wataya and Hitomi Kanehara, Amy Yamada was part of the shinjinrui (new breed) generation that came of age in the late '70s, the first to grow up in an affluent, peaceful postwar Japan. Side-effects of prosperity included ennui and alienation from their parents, often manifesting in hedonism — the very stuff of Yamada's fiction.

CULTURE / Books

Nov 7, 2015

'The Invitation-Only Zone' is a nuanced account of North Korea's abductions

Robert S. Boynton describes his book as "extreme journalism," which he defines as "reporting on a series of events spanning several decades, in three countries, in two languages I don't speak."

CULTURE / Books

Aug 29, 2015

'The Book of Tokyo' reveals sidelined Japanese writers, but not the city itself

"The Book of Tokyo" is part of Comma Press' "Reading the City" series, though most of the stories inside could be transplanted to other Japanese cities — Nagoya, Fukuoka or Sapporo — without any noticeable difference.

CULTURE / Books

Jul 18, 2015

'A Dictionary of Mutual Understanding' frames the universal horror of atomic weapons

Nagasaki is a popular setting for novels about Japan. During the years when Japan shut itself off from the world, the port town became a door left ajar, and some of the appeal for novelists is the enduring frontier myth the city has cultivated, with its easy blend of East and West.

CULTURE / Books

Jun 20, 2015

The new face of Japanese sci-fi chases an augmented world

Japanese science fiction has a long history. The genre could be considered to stretch back as far as the eighth-century tale of time traveler Urashima Taro or 10th-century story of moon-princess Kaguya-hime, but it was the rapid changes brought on during the Meiji Era (1868-1912) that generated one of the nation’s first pieces of speculative fiction with Shunro Oshikawa’s “Kaitei Gunkan” (“Undersea Warship”). Over the decades since, Japanese sci-fi has foreshadowed changes in society, predicted wars and anticipated the emergence of new technologies. One Japan’s newest sci-fi writers to write about — and through — the latter is Taiyo Fujii.

CULTURE / Books

May 23, 2015

"Tokyo" is an unsettling take on the "foreigner in Japan" trope

So-called foreigner-in-Japan novels can set cliche alarm bells ringing, so when a book as exciting and original as Nicholas Hogg's "Tokyo" comes along, it takes a moment to recalibrate expectations. And it's not the last time Hogg wrong-foots his readers — this slow-boil thriller is designed to unsettle.

CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES

May 16, 2015

MacArthur's JapaneseConstitution

The Constitution is one of the more controversial documents of our age. Some want it rewritten, some hold it as an inviolable sacred text. Article 9 — the article renouncing war — has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wants it abolished. Yet for all the column inches and placards the Constitution inspires, there are remarkably few books that deal with the process by which it was written.

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