Japan Story: In Search of a Nation, 1850 to the Present

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Comma Press is an indie publisher that puts out consistently fantastic collections of literature in translation, from their Refugee Tales series to their “Reading the City” collections. Kyoko Nakajima is an author celebrated in Japan and beyond for her Naoki Prize-winning novel The Little House. She is also author of the to-be-treasured Japanese short story collection Things Remembered and Things Forgotten. In 710, the government constructed a grandiose new capital at Heijō-kyō (modern Nara) modeled on Chang'an, the capital of the Chinese Tang dynasty. During this period, the first two books produced in Japan appeared: the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki, [42] which contain chronicles of legendary accounts of early Japan and its creation myth, which describes the imperial line as descendants of the gods. [43] The Man'yōshū was compiled in the latter half of the eighth century, which is widely considered the finest collection of Japanese poetry. [44]

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These stories were also translated by a star-studded cast of translators: Samuel Malissa, Lydia Moed, Hart Larrabee, Takami Nieda, Jonathan Lloyd-Davies, Morgan Giles, Dan Bradley, Asa Yoneda, Lucy Fraser, Ginny Tapley Takemori.Even after discovering the truth Ogiwara missed Otsuyu desperately. After some time, he could no longer bear his sadness and returned to the temple where Otsuyu lay buried. At the temple gates, Otsuyu appeared before him once more. Reaching out her hand, she asked Ogiwara to accompany her home. Without hesitation, Ogiwara took her hand, walking with her into the darkness. Covering the period from 1850 to 2018, the work features a diverse cast of Buddhists and activists, feminists and terrorists, psychotherapists and jazz pianists, and surrealists and avant-garde artists. Initially intended to be about resistance and protest in Japan, Harding says, it ultimately evolved into a modern history. Another story, The Long Dream, shows us a man in a hospital bed who lives entire lives every time he dreams. When he wakes, his body has aged as well, eventually turning him into an impossibly ancient, horrifyingly morphed thing. Other stories dare to explore the same universal taboos that Earthlings dealt with — incest, cannibalism, and more — and the characters who perform these acts are far outside the status quo.

Top 10 books about Japan | Books | The Guardian

Known as The Lonesome Bodybuilder in some places and Picnic in the Storm in others, this is a Japanese short story collection full of surrealism and feminist gusto. She attends the gym ritualistically until she becomes a Goliath figure, and all the while her husband fails to notice her transformation.

9. Issun-boshi

These are thrilling short stories of ghosts and monsters in the everyday. They’re sometimes strange and jarring, especially given the juxtaposition of ape-like monsters and castle-haunting ghosts with modern suit-and-tie culture, but that is simply part of the fun that is to be gleaned from these tales. One memorably story in this collection, Mole, presents us with a world in which humans and anthropomorphised moles coexist, and while the moles are shunned and disliked, our mole protagonist spends his days saving the lives of humans who have given up hope and come close to death. There is, quite simply, so much fun to be had with this Japanese short story collection. Many of the stories here provide us with an angle: that of a young woman or man in a strange or difficult situation.