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July 05, 2025
 

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FICTION

Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Sep 6, 2014
Veteran Tokyo editor turns his mind to crime
"Japan has her secrets, as you well know," a Kyoto art dealer named Takahashi tells American Jim Brodie. "Many are open secrets. We Japanese are aware of them, are ashamed of them, and don't speak of them often, if ever. Our embarrassing moments remain, for the most part, confined to these shores. The...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Sep 6, 2014
The Journey
On most lists of great 20th-century Japanese writers, Jiro Osaragi's name does not figure. He was popular and respected in his own day (1898-1973), mostly as a writer of historical fiction, but literary immortality has eluded him. So?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Aug 30, 2014
Inside author David Mitchell's metaphysical mind
Outside the vista windows of the Hotel New Otani's Garden Lounge cafe in Tokyo, it's snowing, in March, and it suddenly feels like the spring flowers in the Japanese garden below may have popped too soon. David Mitchell wonders aloud what kind of flowers they are, before returning to our discussion....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Aug 30, 2014
The Makioka Sisters
Junichiro Tanizaki may be best known for novels featuring protagonists with odd obsessions, but his masterpiece, family epic "The Makioka Sisters," has been hailed by many as Japan's greatest modern novel.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Aug 23, 2014
Wena Poon on life and death in occupied Kyoto
As a child living in a tiny apartment in Singapore, Wena Poon listened to radio plays broadcast in a variety of languages and watched TV — everything from Chinese sword-fighting operas to popular American series such as "M*A*S*H." "There was nowhere to go outside," Poon says, "so I just sat around....
CULTURE / Books
Aug 23, 2014
Masks
Born in the late Meiji Era (1868-1912), Fumiko Enchi was not simply the peer, but the equal of writers in the order of Naoya Shiga and Jiro Osaragi. There was praise for her work from such authors as Junichiro Tanizaki and Yasunari Kawabata, towering figures in Japanese literature. Enchi, in other words,...
CULTURE / Books
Aug 23, 2014
Death and the Flower
When Koji Suzuki wrote "Ring," the novel behind the film that brought the J-horror genre to the world, he apparently had a baby in his lap, and he went on to write not only horror fiction but also parenting books. "Death and the Flower" brings these two sides together nicely.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Aug 16, 2014
Punk author Kou Machida on his offbeat samurai story
You wouldn't expect a punk musician to write decent novels, any more than you'd expect a boxer to be good at darning. The talents prized by the former vocation — restlessness, insouciance, hard-wired disregard for authority — don't lend themselves to the rigors of the author's life: all those long,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Aug 9, 2014
Haruki Murakami's new book peels back the layers of friendship
Haruki Murakami has made his name in the West with the translations of his tome-like novels, but it was 1987's relatively slim Norwegian Wood that made him famous in Japan. And his latest big hit here is similarly slender.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Aug 9, 2014
The Temple of the Golden Pavilion
The torching in 1950 of Kyoto's majestic Temple of the Golden Pavilion remains one of the world's most discussed cases of arson — not least because the act was perpetrated by an acolyte of the temple. Transcripts of his confession and subsequent trial contain a good deal of self-loathing, but a complete...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Aug 9, 2014
The Crane Pavilion
The 12th full-length novel by German-born author I.J. Parker to feature crime-solving government official Sugawara Akitada, "The Crane Pavilion" takes place in Kyoto in the latter part of the Heian Period (794-1185).
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Oct 12, 2013
Pynchon's multigenre novel loses itself in glib in-jokes and pop-culture references
Thomas Pynchon's new novel prompts a question relevant to him and to all contemporary artists, from writers to directors to choreographers: If the present day is atomized, paranoid, infantile, obsessive, can a work of art capture this without taking on these attributes itself?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Oct 5, 2013
Lahiri manages to finely balance the personal and political in second novel
The immigrant experience is always fertile ground for fiction, and Jhumpa Lahiri — born in London to Bengali parents and raised in Rhode Island — has built her literary career exploring this territory as it relates to characters of Indian origin in America, with all the attendant questions of identity,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Sep 21, 2013
Protagonist returns with the burdens of later life
In popular Irish mythology it's often said that the seeds of the Celtic Tiger were sown shortly after Italia '90, when the country's team reached the quarter-finals of the World Cup soccer tournament for the first time.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Aug 24, 2013
Deft campus romance between aloof professor and one-time mentor
Professor Elizabeth Stone, the heroine of Grace McCleen's incandescent second novel, is a classic campus contradiction: both quite brilliant and utterly clueless. Despite having a lauded book on Milton and a stack of learned articles to her name, her fellow human beings — indeed, her own self — remain...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Aug 3, 2013
Murderous disintegration of a marriage is all too believable in first and final novel
Jodi Brett is beautiful, rich and intelligent. A psychotherapist, she is also, as A.S.A. Harrison's debut opens, "deeply unaware that her life is now peaking ... that a few short months are all it will take to make a killer of her." Because her partner of 20 years, Todd Gilbert, never a faithful man,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jul 13, 2013
A diary washed ashore opens up a world of multiple realities
A good read transcends into the eternal, melding the real now with a timeless present. Ruth Ozeki's "A Tale for the Time Being" is all that and more: a quietly amazing achievement, a careful construct bridging quantum physics and the role of the reader/observer, a Zen eternity of multiple realities...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jul 13, 2013
Intriguing coming-of-age story masquerading as a crime thriller
'Joyland" comes with all the horror trappings for which Stephen King is known: a sinister carnival, a grisly unsolved murder, a haunted ride.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jun 2, 2013
Complex tale told with great narrative facility
There is a bland, almost corporate flavor to the title of Khaled Hosseini's third book, suggesting a large but windy Afghan epic. Its narrative wares are clearly advertised in the book-jacket blurb to reassure his tens of millions of worldwide readers that they will be getting the brand they want.
CULTURE / Books
May 5, 2013
Second-person narration brings home realities of poverty
Mohsin Hamid's new novel comes with a ringing endorsement on its back cover from Jay McInerney, a writer one doesn't readily associate with subcontinental fictions about escaping poverty. But McInerney can speak with authority on second-person narration, having written "Bright Lights, Big City," one...
A prophesied disaster (likely) won’t strike Japan this weekend
A viral manga prediction of a July 5 disaster has gripped Japan with anxiety and triggered an economic impact, but experts warn that while such dates are unreliable, the threat of a massive earthquake remains real. 
Magnitude 5.5 earthquake jars Tokara Islands amid flurry of seismic activity
A strong quake struck off the Tokara Islands on Thursday afternoon, with the island chain having recorded around 1,000 earthquakes since a burst of seismic activity first began on June 21.
Japan to require flight passengers to keep power banks within sight
The transport ministry has announced new regulations requiring flight passengers to keep power banks within sight to mitigate fire risks while on board planes.
Ghibli’s Isao Takahata exhibit shows how beloved anime is made
“The man who planted Japanese animation” exhibition includes a variety of sketches, drawings and animation cels from Isao Takahata films such as color design for characters by Michiyo Yasuda from "Grave of the Fireflies."
Residents of Tokara Islands begin evacuation as seismic swarm continues
Details about evacuations from Akuseki Island, located in the Tokara island chain in Kagoshima Prefecture, is seen written on a whiteboard in the city of Kagoshima on Thursday.
Ghibli’s Isao Takahata exhibit shows how beloved anime is made
“The man who planted Japanese animation” exhibition includes a variety of sketches, drawings and animation cels from Isao Takahata films such as color design for characters by Michiyo Yasuda from "Grave of the Fireflies."
Flag football facing challenges and opportunities ahead
Japan’s women’s flag football team at the 2025 International Bowl in Los Angeles in June. The sport is enjoying continued growth in the country.
From Hokusai’s Great Wave, shinkansen to One Piece: a cultural treasure box for Lego Japan
Michael Ebbesen, general manager of Lego Japan, says Lego bricks based on Japanese culture have a rich global appeal and are sellable around the world.
With farmed fish, RelationFish swims against the tide in fine dining
Chef Hideaki Matsuo (middle) and the staff of Oseto Suisan Fisheries prepare to check on their sustainably farmed fish.
As Southeast Asia heats up, a Japanese cooling giant sees a major opportunity
An employee of Daikin Cambodia explains the use of different tools during an air conditioner installation training session in Phnom Penh. Daikin is one of Japan’s oldest air conditioning companies, but as Japan’s population falls, the firm is keying in on overseas growth.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji
By Alex K.T. Martin

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