Our critics’ favorite books published in 2020
As 2021 approaches, six Japan Times book reviewers look back on their top reads released in English this year.
Sayaka Murata's 'Earthlings': Alienated misfits fight against the ties that bind
Sayaka Murata’s latest novel is an incisive expose of societal pressures and expectations, and touches on taboo topics such as abuse and incest.
Is Japan enjoying a new literary golden age?
With more and more Japanese novels in translation achieving commercial and critical success, Nicolas Gattig and Damian Flanagan argue over whether a new wave of writers are transcending Japan's literary past.
The books and translations about Japan to watch out for in 2020
A new decade brings a whole host of translations from prize-winning Japanese authors and books about Japan, from detective fiction to geopolitical studies.
In 'Convenience Store Woman', Sayaka Murata questions normality in modern Japan
A former convenience store worker herself, Murata tells stories of women who don't fit in, who aren't ticking the boxes of middle class conformity.
Sayaka Murata and the art of neutrality
When 36-year-old Sayaka Murata recently won the prestigious Akutagawa Prize for literature, the media latched onto the author's background rather than the novel itself. Murata continues to work part-time as a convenience store clerk, and gains inspiration for characters and plots from her work ...
Convenience store worker who moonlights as an author wins prestigious Akutagawa Prize
A 36-year-old part-time convenience store employee has won the 155th Akutagawa Prize, a prestigious literary award, for a book that explores life in and around convenience stores, the selection committee announced. "I still can't believe it. It seems like a miracle," said Sayaka Murata, the ...
NPO founder fights to reverse plight of Asia child sex victims
When Sayaka Murata visited Cambodia while in university, she was shocked to see a little girl around 5 or 6 years old among those who had been rescued after being tortured by electric shock and forced into the sex trade. Murata, 34, founder of a ...
