J-Lit Giants: 17 - Keigo Higashino

With January in Japan fast coming to an end, we just have time for one more writer to be inducted into the J-Lit Giants pantheon, and today's author is a more contemporary choice.  I'm not a huge fan of crime fiction, but Kim Forrester, curator of the Reading Matters blog, is, and in this piece she explains why Keigo Higashino deserves his place in our Hall of Fame :)

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If you think crime novels are generally formulaic whodunits, then you probably haven’t read Japanese writer Keigo Higashino.

Arguably Japan’s biggest selling crime novelist, Higashino does not follow the normal conventions of the genre. Like his Scandinavian counterparts, he tends to focus on the bigger picture: he’s less concerned with who did it, but how they did it, why they did it and whether they’ll get away with it. His fast-paced narratives, written in stripped back, practically anorexic prose, also include a dizzying number of twists and turns, so it becomes simply impossible to guess what is going to happen next.

Only last month, a major online bookstore in South Korea — where he is widely translated — named him as the year’s top writer based on volume of books sold and votes by readers. But in the English-speaking world he’s far less well known… though that is changing.

Higashino was born in Osaka on 4 February 1958 (he’ll celebrate his 57^th birthday next month). He started writing novels in his spare time while working as an engineer at an automotive components manufacturer. According to Wikipedia, he quit his day job in 1985, after he won the annual Edogawa Rampo Award for his unpublished novel Hōkago (which has never been translated into English). He was just 27 — and a whole new career had opened up for him.

But it took about a decade for his novels to start garnering significant attention — and sales. After he won the Mystery Writers of Japan Award in 1998 for his novel Naoko, every other novel since then has been a bestseller. When he won the coveted Naoki Prize in 2006 for The Devotion of Suspect X, he really hit the big time: as of February 2012, the book has sold 2.7 million copies in Japan alone. It was the first of his novels to be translated into English and it was nominated for an Edgar Award in 2012.

Higashino served as the 13th President of Mystery Writers of Japan from 2009 to 2013 — and kept churning out the stories. He’s incredibly prolific, penning up to two novels per year. He has more than 50 novels to his name, more than 10 short story collections and several children’s books — yet just four of his books have been translated into English.

He’s best known for his Detective Galileo series — which includes Devotion of Suspect X (translated in 2011), Salvation of a Saint (translated in 2012), Midsummer's Equation (to be translated in late 2015) and five short story collections (none of which have been translated) — and his Police Detective Kaga Series, of which only one (out of nine), Malice (translated in 2014), has been translated into English.

As for his influences, in 2011, he told the Wall Street Journal that he liked some Western writers, but “I am much more influenced by Japanese authors and so my work naturally has that Japanese sense of old-fashioned loyalty and concern for human feeling.” These influences include the classic Japanese crime writers Edogawa Rampo and Seicho Matsumoto. 

The same article asked if Higashino was the “next Stieg Larsson?” No doubt it was just an attention-grabbing headline, but the comparison is a reasonable enough one to make: both are best-selling crime novelists, both write in a language that is not English and both have had their work adapted for the big screen (The Devotion of Suspect X has been made into a cult film). But there’s one important difference: Higashino is alive and well —  and he continues to pen brilliant crime novels. It’s just a shame so few of them have been translated into English for us to enjoy.

So, where to start with Higashino's work?  Well, there are only four to choose from... 

1. Naoko (translated by Kerim Yasar, 2004) — The book that won the Mystery Writers of Japan Award in 1998 (and the only one I haven’t read) is supposedly a surreal story about a man who discovers that this dead wife’s soul now resides in his teenage daughter’s body. Reviewers have described it as “quirky” and “profound”. 

2. The Devotion of Suspect X (translated by Alexander O. Smith, 2011) — The book that made him a star, this is one of the most ingenious crime novels you are ever likely to read. It’s about a maths teacher — “Suspect X” of the title — who goes to extraordinary lengths to cover up a murder. This is despite the fact that he is innocent of the crime in question. His motivation is nothing more than love — and an obsession with mathematical puzzles. 

3. Salvation of a Saint (translated by Alexander O. Smith, 2012) — This is a more straightforward police procedural, but it’s also a “locked room” mystery. It focuses on a puzzling crime in which a man is found dead in his empty apartment. He’s lying face down on the floor with a spilled cup of poisoned coffee next to him. But who put the poison in his drink? His devoted wife or his wife’s young assistant, with whom he’d been having an affair? 

4. Malice (translated by Alexander O. Smith, 2014) — His latest novel to be translated into English, it tells the story of three men: two professional rivals, one of whom murders the other, and the police detective who investigates the crime. It’s another “locked room” mystery because the murder was carried out in in a locked office within a locked house, so how did the killer get inside? But as the investigation unfolds, it becomes a fast-paced cat-and-mouse game between the detective and his chief suspect, who both take it in turns to narrate their version of events.

The good news is that a new one in the Detective Galileo series — Midsummer's Equation — will be published in English later this year.

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Thanks for that Kim, a wonderful introduction to a very popular - and successful - writer.  Has anyone out there tried Higashino's work?  Are you as big a fan as Kim is?  As always, please let us know :)

J-Lit Giants: 16 - Mori Ogai

While Natsume Soseki is often regarded as the first great modern Japanese writer, there was one author who preceded him, both in his writing and in his travels abroad.  Louis Bravos, a Melburnian Japanese-to-English translator, uses today's post to introduce a man who was a contemporary of, and an influence on, the great Soseki.  Read on to find out more...

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Mori Ogai was not the first Japanese writer-translator - since writing came from China, Japanese writers have always been translators - nor is he the most famous (that honour would go to Haruki Murakami), but along with Natsume Soseki, Mori played an important part in shifting the focus of Japanese literature, in line with the Meiji era policy of 脱亜入欧, a shift in Japanese foreign policy from Asia to Europe.

Mori Ogai was born Mori Rintaro in Tsuwano, in Iwami Province on February 17th, 1862. The eldest son of a family of army physicians, he carried on the family trade, learning medicine, Dutch and western philosophy. After the Meiji Restoration saw the abolition of the han system of feudal domains, Mori's family moved to Tokyo, where he began to learn German - the language of medicine at the time. After enlisting in the army as a surgeon, he was sent to Germany in 1884. Upon returning to Japan, he began to publish medical journals, and also started to show an interest in Japanese literature, publishing short stories, editing a literary journal and producing translations of European classics by authors including Goethe and Ibsen.

His literary work is described as "anti-realist", reflecting the emotional and spiritual rather than the actual. His early works, including The Dancing Girl and Seinen (The Young Men), bear a resemblance to the work of contemporary Natsume Soseki, with the added influence of Ogai's time in Germany and his reading of European classics. Many of his own literary works act as critical studies of his own translations, particularly in his early career. His later work veered more towards historical fiction, set in the 17th and 18th century, as well as some biography and criticism. Takasebune (The Boat on the Takase River), one of Mori's later works, tells the story of a boat carrying prisoners from Kyoto to Osaka for exile, and despite cold critical reception at the time due to its theme of euthanasia, it is now perhaps one of his most famous works. 

Mori's work in English translation is not easy to find - there are some stories in collections, and large libraries might have ancient copies of one or two of his novels, but if you can find them, they're a great companion to Natsume Soseki and give a great insight into Japan as it was opening up to the world. Here's my pick of the bunch:

1) The Dancing Girl, Mori's first published story, describing an affair between a Japanese man and a German dancer, is a sort of Madame Butterfly in reverse. The Japanese man, in Berlin studying, must choose between his career and his feelings for the dancer, who he has made pregnant.

2) Mori's most famous - or perhaps infamous - novel, Vita Sexualis, is an erotic tale of a philosopher coming to terms with his sexuality. Though banned almost immediately after its publication on grounds of obscenity, the novel actually doesn't describe any sex, instead casting a philosophical eye over Meiji Period moral struggles with sexuality.

3) The Wild Goose (occasionally translated as The Wild Geese), however, is Mori at his best, and Finlay Lloyd's beautiful edition of Meredith McKinney's new translation, published in 2014, allows the subtle nuances of the original to shine. The Wild Goose is a sort of Meiji Period Lost In Translation, where an old moneylender sets up house for his young mistress, who, feeling empty, lonely and rejected in her new world, looks for companionship in a young medical student about to leave for Germany.

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Another excellent introduction to a great Japanese writer, one who, once again, isn't quite as well known as he might be.  I've read a different translation of The Wild Geese, and after looking at Louis' piece, I also tried 'The Dancing Girl' (and enjoyed it!).  If anyone has any comments on these, or other, books, you know what to do - comments, please ;)

J-Lit Giants: 15 - Fumiko Enchi

We're back with another J-Lit Giant, and today's post looks at a writer who, while not exactly unknown in the West, still hasn't got the readership she deserves.  The person attempting to change that is Carola, a Dutch blogger with a background in Japanese studies, whose work can be seen over at the brilliant years site.  Take it away, Carola ;)

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These days Fumiko Enchi (1905-1986) is perhaps the most well-known female author among the classics. Born in Tokyo, she was brought up with lessons in English, French and Chinese literature, and frequented the Kabuki theatre as a child. So it is no surprise that her first piece of writing was in fact a play, the one-act Furusato (Birthplace) in 1926. She continued to write plays in the Twenties, and they were positively received.

Enchi, however, did not start writing novels until after the birth of her daughter in 1930, and she was not having such an easy time then. Her first book, Sambun Ren’ai, appeared in 1936, but her novels did not receive the same attention as her plays. On top of that, she suffered from cancer and post-surgical complications and lost her possessions in an air raid in 1945. 

It wasn't until after the war that her works were received favourably. In 1953, she won the Women’s Literature Prize for her work Himoji Tsukihi (Starving Days). What is especially interesting about her work is that she embraces Japanese traditional values and borrows from the classics, but at the same time much of her work is surprisingly modern and feminist. It is the women who star in her books, and they are well-rounded characters, both psychological and sensitive, but also definitely in a sensual way.

Enchi continued to win prizes with her novels, the most impressive being the Order of Culture in 1985, awarded by Emperor Hirohito, just a year before Enchi died. 

Masks (1958) is perhaps Enchi’s best known work in the western world and the first to get translated into English. A widow's mother-in-law manipulates the relationship between the young woman and the two men in love with her. The mother-in-law is based on Lady Rokujo from the classical Genji Monogatari (The Tale of Genji). 

The Waiting Years (1949–1957) won Enchi the Noma Prize for Literature in 1957. A young woman, Tomo, is married to a government official. Soon she has to accept her husband taking a mistress and is even forced to pick him one... and then another, and another... 

A Tale of False Fortunes gives an alternative account of the classical Eiga Monogatari (Story of Splendour), which is believed to have been originally written by several authors over a period of nearly a hundred years, from 1028–1107.  During her career, Enchi regularly translated classics, such as Genji Monogatari, into Japanese, so this adaptation is definitely an interesting work.

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Many thanks to Carola for the great introduction to Enchi's life and works :)  I'd only previously tried a couple of short stories, but I recently read Masks and can definitely recommend it.  Hopefully, there'll be some more (re)translations appearing soon...

Has anyone out there tried any of these (or other) Enchi books?  If so, please share your views on her work in the comments area - we'd love to hear what you have to say :)

J-Lit Giants: 14 - Yoriko Shōno

Today sees the first of our guest posts for the 2015 J-Lit Giants series, introducing a writer whose work (unfortunately) hasn't made it into English yet.  Morgan Giles, translator and occasional blogger, makes the case for publishing a writer with an impressive track record on the Japanese literary prize scene and some intriguing-sounding books under her belt :)

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Yoriko Shōno is a giant of Japanese literature, the only author ever to win all three major prizes for new writers, and yet you’ve probably never heard of her. Her ‘avant-pop’ masterpieces remain untranslated. Thirty four years after her debut, Shōno is, in the words of her publishers, ‘the guardian deity of Japanese literature, and the eternal newcomer.'

Maybe it’s because her career hasn’t had the usual trajectory. Born in 1956, Shōno began writing while studying law at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto. After her 1981 debut Paradise (‘Gokuraku’) won the Gunzo New Writers Prize, she did not publish much and what she did publish attracted curiously little attention. But after a decade in the wilderness, Shōno returned to the forefront of the literary scene in a big way. Between 1991 and 1994, she won the Noma Literary Prize for New Writers, the Yukio Mishima Prize, and the Akutagawa Prize. Those ‘triple crown’ winning works, Not Doing Anything (‘Nani mo shitenai’), The Two-Hundredth Death Anniversary (‘Ni-hyaku-kai-ki’), and The Time Warp Industrial Complex (‘Taimu surippu konbinaato’) cemented Shōno’s reputation as an elegantly inventive postmodernist and occasional autofictionalist.

Shōno writes lucidly and poetically in a way that makes the strange seem perfectly reasonable, slipping her characters into languid dream worlds before taking them on a detour into slapstick humor and rampant paranoia. Her narrators frequently bear a resemblance to her (unattractive, single, middle-aged female writers without money or fame), calling to mind the Japanese tradition of the “I-novel”, which Shōno subverts in order to explore her main themes: gender and feminism. Her background as a law student, she says, is the main influence on her writing, making her question the supposedly “logical” and giving her subjective reality higher importance. She also uses mystical elements, from the Izanagi-Izanami origin story to Shinto and Buddhist traditions, to interrogate the role of women in Japanese society.

In The Time Warp Industrial Complex, a writer is awakened from a dream about being in love with a tuna fish by a phone call from a man she does not know and is sent off to Umishibaura, a railway station at the end of a line near Tokyo Bay. To one side of the station is a Toshiba factory; to the other side is the sea. As she makes her way there, the past and present merge and the writer finds herself both in “the scene of what’s left after everything is over” and the industrial town she grew up in. A personal meditation on Japan’s Bubble Era, Shōno depicts “the conflict between illusion and brutal reality” both in love and economics.

Shōno has continued to invent and define her own world through writing; her 2004 novel Konpira (‘Kompira’), winner of the Ito Sei Prize, is about a female writer much like Shōno who comes to the realization that she is the Hindu crocodile god Kumbhira, adopted in Japan as Konpira, the Buddhist guardian of those at sea. In a review, her fellow postmodernist, Gen’ichiro Takahashi, echoed Shōno’s feelings about her own writing when he wrote that, “To be Konpira is to believe. It is to offer ultrapersonal prayers. Prayer is not an illusion. It needs no interpretation or metaphor.”

Her most recent work, Record of a Non-Illness: Collagen Disorder, “Mixed Connective Tissue Disease” (‘Mi-tōbyō-ki ―― kōgenbyō, “kongō seiketsu gōsoshikibyō” no’), won the 2014 Noma Prize for Shōno’s depiction of the realities of life with a chronic autoimmune disease. In her comments after winning the prize, she said, “I’ve been referred to as having become critical of neoliberalism or said to have written about the nuclear state before the 2011 disaster, but I have only one simple rule: I write about what I see, and when I can’t write I write about why I can’t…. Ten years ago I was diagnosed with an incurable disease with little hope…. And now twenty three years later [after her 1991 Noma Prize for New Writers win], I have received the prize I always hoped for! Is this the irony of fate? No, this is divine will!”

If there is such a thing as divine will, someday we’ll see Yoriko Shōno’s writing in English. Until then, an excerpt from the beginning of The Time Warp Complex is all we have. Konpira, save us.

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Some Interesting Links: 
An Excerpt from Time Warp Complex

An Interview with Yoriko Shōno: (Review of Contemporary Fiction, June 2002)

J-Lit profile: (Books from Japan)

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Many thanks to Morgan for her excellent introduction to a Japanese writer overlooked by the English-speaking publishing world (alas, one of far too many).  If any publishers out there have had their interest piqued by this short biography, you know who to call ;)

J-Lit Giants: 13 - Ryū Murakami

Welcome to another year of J-Lit Giants, where we sing the praises of great Japanese writers.  We're starting off the third set of inductees with a man who, despite his success, can sometimes be a little unfairly overlooked overseas.  However, this is hardly surprising - it's difficult to get all the fame you deserve when you share your family name with perhaps the most famous Japanese writer in history...

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Ryū Murakami, once the enfant terrible of Japanese literature, has gradually grown into its grumpy old man, a writer always willing to take out his rage against society in his books, destroying Tokyo several times in the process.  Born in Nagasaki in 1952, he was a bit of a rebel during his school days, and quite apart from his short-lived time as a drummer, he did his part during the student protests of the late sixties, including a roof-top protest at his school (an event later fictionalised in his novel Sixty-Nine).

Like many Japanese writers, he eventually headed off to Tokyo; unlike many Japanese writers, he studied sculpture rather than literature.  This didn't stop him from moving into writing, and his first work, Almost Transparent Blue, was written while he was still a student.  A rather disturbing look at street life and drug use, it won both the Gunzo Prize for new writers and the prestigious Akutagawa Prize (one which a certain other writer never managed to win...).

Ryū continued to focus on the dark underbelly of Japanese society, and most of his novels focus on the down-and-out, those left behind by the conveyor belt taking young Japanese through the school system, into a nice university and then onto an exhausting job for life in a major company, or a few years of making tea before finding a husband (depending on gender).  While some of his books vibrate with anger and frustration (e.g. Coin Locker Babies), others can take a more humorous, surreal approach (such as Popular Hits of the
Shōwa Era).  Whatever the approach, the body count can be quite high - it's always best for people to be out of Tokyo when Ryū's characters come to town ;)

Of course, the elephant in the room when discussing Ryū is the other Murakami, Haruki, a man with a very different style, but whose path mirrors Ryū's to a certain extent.  They were born a few years apart, and Ryū published his first book a couple of years before Haruki.  In a way, particularly for overseas readers, they will forever be linked, even if stylistically they're the Yin and Yang of their era of J-Lit.  This is perhaps best displayed in the novels Norwegian Wood and Sixty-Nine - while Haruki's university student Toru Watanabe avoids the protests going on around him, retreating into literature and long walks through Tokyo, down in Sasebo, Kensuke Yazaki is trashing his school and organising a rock concert.

Who would you rather hang out with? ;)

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I've still to get to a lot of Ryū's work, mainly because I'm a sensitive soul, but what I have read I've enjoyed for the most part (with the exception of a few scenes...).  Here are a few to check out:

1) Coin Locker Babies - Two unwanted babies, abandoned in coin lockers at Tokyo Station by their mothers, are miraculously rescued and sent to an orphanage.  This is a searing look at Tokyo's underworld, and it's a gripping read.  Two friends, two very different futures: sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll and a city that's going to wish the boys had never been born...

2) Popular Hits of the Shōwa Era - Lunacy, pure lunacy.  A gang of karaoke-loving losers fight a battle to the death against a group of thirty-something women whose only previous concern was losing the excess weight they'd managed to amass over the years.  This is a book which deserves to be a graphic novel - it's pure cartoon madness, and I loved it :)

3) Sixty-Nine - I've already mentioned this one above several times, and there's a reason for that.  It's probably the most accessible of the ones I've read, a fun look back to the writer's narrator's high-school days.  'If you put it on, they will come' is his approach to the concert he dreams of holding - if only he can cope with teachers, aggressive gang members and the wiles of the opposite sex...

Bonus Suggestions - While I haven't yet read it, Almost Transparent Blue is a book which I've heard great things about (UPDATE - review out now!), and another to recommend is Audition.  I watched the movie adaptation a while back, and... well, let's just say that it's fairly dark ;)

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So, we're off and running, with another excellent writer inducted into our Hall of Fame :)  Who's next up for the J-Lit Giants pantheon?  You'll just have to wait until next Wednesday to find out ;)

J-Lit Giants: 12 - Banana Yoshimoto

We're back on Wednesday with the final J-Lit Giants induction for this January, and it may well be the most controversial so far.  While one definition of 'giant' might be a writer whose work shines out from among that of other writers, another might be that of a writer whose personality and work somehow hits a chord with a generation of readers, both at home and overseas - which brings me to today's addition...

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Banana Yoshimoto was born with the less fruity name of Mahoko Yoshimoto in 1964.  She grew up in a rather liberal family, where she enjoyed an unusual (for a Japanese woman) amount of freedom.  She later studied literature, deciding to choose her new name (while the pseudonym itself is unusual, the idea of taking one is a long-standing Japanese tradition).

She worked on her writing while she was working as a waitress, and her first story, Moonlight Shadow, was a big hit.  This was followed by Kitchen, a book which led to instant success at home, which was then mirrored overseas.  Yoshimoto was to become a J-Lit star, a Japanese export suited to a cutesy image people in the west were developing of the country; in fact, she was perhaps second only to you-know-who in her branding in the west.
 
She has since written several more books, with around eight of her works currently available in English.  The majority of her stories centre on familiar themes, such as the loss of a loved one, the difficulty of settling down into adult life and - of course - the supernatural...

While Yoshimoto is a big name in J-Lit, reviews of her work have not always been positive, and many see her work as light and superficial.  Her response?

"A lot of my critics like to point out the fun, escapist side of my writing. Some even say that it is superficial and specially catered for popular consumption. Sometimes, I feel guilty since I write my stories for fun, not for therapy. But I am not deterred from my ultimate dream of receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature."

Well, that's confidence for you ;)  I have to admit that this quote comes from a blog which may or may not be hers (click here to see it).  However,while the quote is no longer on her English-language Wikipedia page (it used to be), much of the rest of the blog post still is.  True or not, it's all part of the image that is Banana Yoshimoto :)

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I've now read most of Yoshimoto's work available in English, and I'm still not convinced.  However, while I struggle with some aspects of her writing, there's always something there that makes me come back for another try.  But where should the new reader begin?

1) Kitchen - The English version of Kitchen actually contains the title story, a two-part novella and the short story 'Moonlight Shadow'.  Both deal with the theme of grieving for loved ones and finding a way to move on with your life, and the stories are perfect examples of Yoshimoto's style and ideas.  If you don't like these, then it's probably best to just keep moving...

2) Amrita - This is one of Yoshimoto's longest books in English, probably her only full-length novel.  A stressed-out woman, on the verge of entering her thirties, has her life turned upside down by a simple slip on some stairs.  What follows is a story which has as its moral the importance of seizing the day - with some added ghosts, of course ;)

3) The Lake - Yoshimoto's most recent novel in English was longlisted for The Man Asian Prize, and it's a more nuanced work than some of her earlier efforts (even if the metaphor of the fog, which dominates parts of the novel, is a touch heavy-handed for some).  This is another tale of a struggling relationship, but one with a slightly more tangible root to its problems...

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I've had my say - now it's over to you!  Are you a big fan of Ms. Banana, or is she a writer you love to hate?  Which of her books do you love (or loathe)?  Let me know in the usual place ;)

J-Lit Giants: 11 - Kenzaburo Oe

It's Wednesday again, which means that it's time for another J-Lit Giant to be introduced, and it's a big one today.  He's one of just two Japanese writers to have been awarded the world's highest literary honour, the Nobel Prize for Literature - truly a worthy giant...

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Kenzaburo Oe was born in 1935 in a small, secluded town on the island of Shikoku.  As a child growing up during the war, his experiences (mostly second hand) were to have an influence on his later writing.  Although he wanted to stay at home and follow in his conservationist father's footsteps, he eventually visited Tokyo at the age of eighteen and later moved there to work on his writing.

Greatly influenced by French writers, such as Jean-Paul Sartre, he began to write short stories and quickly won acclaim.  One of his first efforts, 'Prize Stock', the story of a small mountain village and a captured American soldier, won the prestigious Akutagawa Prize in 1958, after which he began to write short novels (e.g. Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids).

His life (and writing) changed forever with the birth of his son, Hikari.  The baby was born with a brain swelling which led to a mental handicap, and the trauma Oe felt was to overshadow his subsequent writing.  Many of his later works, including A Personal Matter, were semi-autobiographical works attempting to work through the writer's demons.

Besides his works about Hikari, Oe also wrote much about the war (especially in his early stories and in Hiroshima Notes, a book of essays) and the seclusion of his home town (The Silent Cry).  He gradually became an elder statesman of the Japanese literary scene, an influence on many younger writers (I can think of one prominent example...).  In addition to the Akutagawa Prize, he received many of Japan's highest literary awards (e.g. the Yomiuri Prize and the Tanizaki Prize) before being awarded with the Nobel Prize in 1994.  That wasn't the end of his career though; in fact, he published a new book (In Late Style) very recently :)

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I haven't read a lot by Oe, compared to some other Japanese writers, but all three I have read (from his early career) are very good:

1) The Silent Cry - An intense, claustrophobic novel set in a place similar to Oe's real hometown.  While it's another attempt to deal with his disabled son, it's also a superb piece of writing about isolation from society.  Anyone wanting to see where Murakami got his inspiration should read this, as you'll be seeing hints in the first few pages ;)

2) A Personal Matter - A child is born, and a family's life falls apart.  A wonderfully honest account of the dilemmas facing a 1960s man who isn't ready for the task of bringing up a mentally-handicapped child.

3) Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids - A bunch of kids sent to a village in the mountains arrive to find it ravaged by disease.  What happens next?  A kind of Lord of the Flies in the Japanese countryside...

Bonus suggestion - My first encounter with Oe was 'Prize Stock', a forty-page story found both in The Oxford Book of Japanese Short Stories and the Oe collection Teach Us to Outgrow our Madness.  It's a great story which is extremely worthy of winning the Akutagawa Prize :)

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There you have it - another giant inducted :)  What do you think - have you read anything by Oe?  What are your favourites?  Let us know by leaving a comment in the usual place...

J-Lit Giants: 10 - Yasunari Kawabata

In last year's original series, there was a serious oversight - neither of the Japanese Nobel Laureates were included.  With Kenzaburo Oe, I did have my reasons as I was saving him for later until I'd read more of his work.  With Yasunari Kawabata though, it was a genuine mistake - in my mind I'd actually already written the post...

Let's rectify that today :)

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Yasunari Kawabata was born in Osaka in 1899, and his early life was a sad one.  He was orphaned at the age of 4 and grew up with his grandparents until their death forced another move.  At the age of eighteen, he went off to school in preparation for university exams, eventually enrolling at Tokyo Imperial University.

It was there that he caught the attention of famous writer Kikuchi Kan, and pieces of his writing were published in Kan's magazine Bungei Shunju.  In 1926, 'The Izu Dancer', his first really successful story, came out, but his serialised work of the next few years went through various styles; his serialised novel The Scarlet Gang of Asakusa was a vibrant western-influenced novel set in a bright, trashy part of Tokyo (a far cry from one of his next works, Snow Country!).

After World War Two, Kawabata arguably produced his best work, perfecting a style which was drifting, beautiful and oblique - what we now see as a typically-Japanese style of writing.  He finished works like Thousand Cranes, The Sound of the Mountain and The Master of Go (a semi-fictional account of a famous contest).  Not content with just writing, Kawabata was also the president of Japanese PEN and an ambassador for Japanese literature (in a couple of anthologies I've read, dating from the 1960s, the editors have expressed their gratitude towards 'Mr. Kawabata'!).

His literary career culminated in the bestowal of the Nobel Prize in 1968, the first time a Japanese writer had received the award.  Sadly though, he died four years later in what appeared to be a suicide (although some people have their doubts).  Haunted by nightmares of Yukio Mishima's shocking death, it seems Kawabata was seeking some peace...

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My three picks?  Well, if I'm entirely honest, I haven't always got Kawabata completely.  I've enjoyed most of those I've read (six or seven of his major works), but I've only loved a few.  These really hit the mark though:

1) The Sound of the Mountain - Easily my favourite Kawabata work, a slow, poignant portrait of an old man facing his mortality - while his family does its best to disturb the peace of his golden years.

2) The Old Capital - A story of a year in Kyoto, The Old Capital is an elegant love story, with layer upon layer of meaning (most of which will undoubtedly be missed by the average Anglophone reader...).

3) Snow Country - A man travels from Tokyo to spend time at a traditional hotel with his lover, a young Geisha.  It's a wonderful story to read, but having tried it twice, I'm still not entirely sure what to make of it ;)

Bonus pick: 'The Izu Dancer', included in The Oxford Book of Japanese Short Stories, is a beautiful twenty-page tale.  It was my first introduction to Kawabata, and it's still one of my favourites.

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Another giant enters the hall of fame - and about time too.  Have you read anything by Kawabata?  Do you agree with my views, or do you have a different favourite?  Perhaps his writing is not to your taste...  Whatever your view, please leave a comment below - that's what the box is for ;)

J-Lit Giants: 9 - Shūsaku Endō

Today sees the first guest post in our 2014 J-Lit Giants series, and I'm very glad to have someone come in and share the load.  Matt Todd blogs at A Novel Approach, and with an honours degree in Japanese postcolonial literature, he is a lot more qualified to do this sort of thing than I am - so I'll just pass you straight over to him...

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Endō Shūsaku (遠藤周作, 1923-1996) is notable in the Japanese canon for several reasons, though the most important—and most obvious—is his faith. In a country that has a troubled history with Christianity (in contemporary Japan, less than 1% of the population self-identifies as Christian), it is intriguing to read an author who is so defined by the fact that he believes in this Western system of belief.

Endō’s world-view comes from his own experiences with the faith. He was baptised as Christian as a child, and as a result, was often mocked and ostracised as he grew up in a country not exactly renowned for its taking up of Christianity.

Many of his works interrogate historical incidents and events that are not usually considered by other authors, particularly inside Japan. His Akutagawa Prize-winning novella, The White Men (白い人), for example, explores questions of original sin and the good/evil dichotomy in Western thought from the point of view of a young man tortured in Nazi-occupied Lyon.

Endō’s most famous work (and the one that won him the Tanizaki Prize) is Silence (沈黙), a novel about a Portuguese missionary who is forced to renounce his Christian faith in public while still spreading the word in private, despite the ban handed down by the bakufu (military government). Martin Scorsese is adapting this into a film.

Inspired by his childhood in Manchuria, The Sea and the Poison (海と毒薬) sees Endo explore the legacy of the Imperial Japanese Army and the war crimes they committed. The book is thought to be based on the work of Unit 731.

Did you know that the first Japanese embassies to Europe were all influenced by Christianity? The Samurai (侍) fictionalises one such mission, showing the fickle nature of politicians and faith in mediaeval Japan.

His work is a distinct voice in the modern history of Japanese literature. From historical novels about the first Western missionaries in Japan, as well as the first Japanese to visit Europe, to contemporary novels about atrocities carried out by the Japanese Imperial Army in the Pacific War, Endō explores the ways in which faith, violence and humanity interact and connect.

For anyone interested in learning more about his life and his work, I would strongly recommend this essay, which goes into more detail about what I have skimmed over here.

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Thanks for that, Matt - a great overview of the life and works of one of J-Lit's modern greats :)

As always, now it's over to you.  Have you read anything by Endō?  Did Matt leave out any of your favourites?  Is the writer's religious focus a drawing card, or has it put you off trying his work?  Leave a comment below, and let us know :)

J-Lit Giants: 8 - Yōko Ogawa

We're back with January in Japan for 2014, and what better way to kick off the second instalment of our event than with the next induction into our pantheon of Japanese writers?  That's right, it's time for the arrival of another J-Lit Giant - and the first one for 2014 is also our first giantess...

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Yōko Ogawa is probably one of the best-known modern female Japanese writers (ignoring those who are named after fruits...).  While relatively few of her works have been translated into English, many more of her books are available in other languages.  In fact, according to her French Wikipedia page, you'll be able to enjoy more than twenty of her works if you are able to read in that language.

She was born in Okayama in 1962, and after studying at the prestigious Waseda University in Tokyo, she began a writing career.  Like many Japanese writers, she made her name when she won the Akutagawa Prize in 1991 (for her novella Pregnancy Diary).  In addition, she has taken out other important prizes, such as the Tanizaki Prize and the Yomiuri Prize, awarded by Japan's biggest newspaper.

Her influences include traditional Japanese writers like Jun'ichiro Tanizaki, as well as the ubiquitous Haruki Murakami, but she is also influenced by American writers such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Raymond Carver.  She has become a hugely successful writer in Japan, and some of her work has made it into film, such as her novel The Housekeeper and the Professor.

As is the case with Murakami, Ogawa's writing is clear and direct, unlike the ambiguous style of older Japanese writers, something which perhaps explains her success so far in English.  While her biggest success, The Housekeeper and the Professor, is a warm, romantic tale, her other work can be more challenging.  Hotel Iris, for example, is a far darker novel, one which might surprise those with memories of the gentle relationship of the earlier book.

With four books so far in English, but dozens in the original Japanese, there are a lot more Ogawa stories waiting to be read.  We just have to hope that someone is going to translate them into English - and, of course, get them published...

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So, where to start with Ogawa's work?  Well, there are only four to choose from...

1) The Diving Pool - This was the first Ogawa work to appear in English and would be the perfect introduction to her world.  It's a collection of three novellas, one of which is her Akutagawa-winning effort, Pregnancy Diary.  It's also the book I've chosen for the first readalong (16th of January), giving you even more reason to try it :)

2) The Housekeeper and the Professor - I liked this, even though it was a little too sweet for my tastes, but most readers have loved it.  The intriguing story of the blossoming relationship between a housekeeper and a mathematician is complicated by two things.  One is the housekeeper's young son; the other is the fact that the professor's memory only goes back ninety minutes - after that, it's all gone...

3) Hotel Iris - Anyone for Japanese rope bondage?  Step this way...  Leave your preconceptions and your shyness at the door - after checking in at this hotel, you'll never see Ogawa (and J-Lit) in quite the same way ;)

4) Revenge - A series of eleven interlinked tales, this collection is said to be another dark one.  I haven't got around to this yet, but I'm very keen to give it a go :)

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There you are - our first female inductee.  Have you read anything by Ogawa?  Do you agree with my views?  Has anyone read anything else (in Japanese, or perhaps French)?  Please leave a comment, and let us all know :)

J-Lit Giants: 7 - Haruki Murakami

Well, we're rapidly approaching the (calendar-dictated) end of January in Japan, but before February sweeps us off the stage, there's just enough time for one more J-Lit Giant to get up there and strut his stuff.  So, who gets the honour of closing the show?  You might just have heard of this one...

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Haruki Murakami (born on the 12th of January, 1949) is quite possibly the most famous Japanese writer ever.  An exaggeration?  I don't think so.  In the English-speaking world, he has no rival for the title, and I'm sure that the same is true in most other countries.  Even in Japan itself, his fame may have outstripped that of traditional writers such as Natsume Soseki or Yasunari Kawabata.  But who is Murakami?

Murakami studied drama at the famous Waseda University in Tokyo, but before even finishing his degree, he got married to his partner Yoko, and they opened a bar (Peter Cat) together.  His life consisted of bar work and translation until, in a moment which could come from one of his works, he decided at a baseball game that he should try his hand at writing a book himself.  The rest, as they say, is history...

His early works earned him healthy sales and a certain amount of respect, but with the release of Norwegian Wood (his most conventional novel), Murakami's fame skyrocketed to such an extent that he was forced to flee Japan to escape the attention.  The later release of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, a book many consider to be his best, brought critical acclaim to match his commercial success.  Kenzaburo Oe, who had been a critic of Murakami's work, praised the novel (which won one of Japan's most prestigious awards, the Yomiuri Prize).

The release of 1Q84 saw Murakami's fame at its peak in the west with publicity and hype at levels unheard of for a novel in translation.  However, in terms of literary success, Murakami's reputation is very much on a knife-edge.  Many believe that 1Q84 was overblown and repetitive, and that the book needed serious editing before being released in English.  Then again, many of these are probably the same people who complained that the English translation of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle was majorly cut...

Murakami's literary legacy is uncertain (and probably best left to future generations!) - what is clear is that he has successfully crossed over into the English-language scene like few foreign writers before him.  He is prolific, and in addition to his fiction work (and his numerous translations of modern American literature), he has written volumes of non-fiction on a wide variety of topics, the majority of which are unlikely to see the light of day in English.  For anyone who has an interest in Murakami, Jay Rubin's biography (which I reviewed earlier in the month) is also a great read - but I'd recommend that you try a good few of his fiction works first ;)

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One of the questions I've been asked most often in all my blogging career is which Murakami work to start with, and like all good questions, it is not an easy one to answer.  I've given different answers on many occasions, but here are three that might help you to ease your way into Murakami's world:

1) The Elephant Vanishes - Although Murakami considers himself a novelist, many readers prefer his shorter work.  The stories in this collection are a great introduction to his bizarre world, and if there are any which don't really take your fancy, there is always another one just over the page :)

2) Norwegian Wood - This is a wonderful, nostalgic novel looking back at a crucial time in the main character's life.  In terms of Murakami's ability to evoke images and emotions, this is as good as it gets.  Be warned though that the realistic style adopted for this novel is very unlike the themes he explores in most of his other work.

3) A Wild Sheep Chase - I would have chosen Murakami's first two novellas (Hear the Wind Sing and Pinball, 1973) here, were it not for the fact that they are once again almost impossible to find in English.  Instead, why not join Boku and the Rat in the third-part of The Trilogy of the Rat, a mesmerising hunt for a very special sheep, taking in a woman with beautiful ears and a very special hotel.  I doubt you'll regret it :)

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So there we have it - a very short guide to one of the biggest J-Lit Giants around!  Please feel free to contradict me, suggesting alternative titles to start with (or slamming my choices).  The floor is now yours...

J-Lit Giants: 6 - Kobo Abe

It's Wednesday - and that means it must be time for another J-Lit Giant!  Gary, of The Parrish Lantern, is back again to introduce us to another great of Japanese literature - and after visiting the world of poetry in his last post, he is back to prose this time :)

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A Man of Many Masks – Kobo Abe

Kōbō Abe (安部 公房 Abe Kōbō), pseudonym of Kimifusa Abe (安部 公房), was born on March the 7th 1924 in Kita, Tokyo, but he grew up in Mukden (now Shen-yang) in Manchuria during the second world war. In 1948, he received a medical degree from the Tokyo Imperial University, yet never practised medicine. As well as being a prose writer, he was also a poet (Mumei shishu - "Poems of an unknown poet" - 1947), playwright, photographer and inventor. Although his first novel Owarishi michi no shirube ni ("The Road Sign at the End of the Street") was published in 1948, which helped to establish his reputation, it wasn’t until the publication of The Woman in the Dunes in 1962 that he won widespread international acclaim.

Often described as an avant-garde playwright and novelist, he shared the same literary map as the likes of Samuel Beckett, Franz Kafka and Eugene Ionesco through a shared sense of the absurd and the central theme of an alienated and isolated individual at a loss in the world. Kobo Abe manages to do this within the realms of genres that would be recognised by most: if you fancy a detective novel, there's The Ruined Map; for Science Fiction, Inter Ice Age 4; for Fantasy, Kangaroo Notebook.  There’s even a love story aspect to The Face of Another.

In the 1960s, he worked with the Japanese director Hiroshi Teshigahara on the film adaptations of The Face of Another, plus The Pitfall, The Woman in the Dunes and The Ruined Map. Then, in the early 1970s, he set up an acting studio in Tokyo, where he trained performers and directed plays. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1977.

Among the honours bestowed on him were the Akutagawa Prize in 1951 for The Crime of S. Karuma, the Yomiuri Prize in 1962 for The Woman in the Dunes, and the Tanizaki Prize in 1967 for the play Friends. Kenzaburō Ōe stated that Abe deserved the Nobel Prize in Literature, which he himself had won (Abe was nominated multiple times).

Kobo Abe, through his work as an avant-garde novelist and playwright, has had names of the calibre of Albert Camus, Alberto Moravia and Franz Kafka, (as well as those mentioned above) thrown at him, and like Kafka there is an apparent clinical detachment in the writing, as though Abe’s medical background has had a direct influence upon his writing style.  Yet with this there is also an elegance that makes his work an immensely enjoyable and also an incredibly satisfying read – on all levels.

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Two Great Books by Kobo Abe

The Face of Another (1964) - A plastics scientist loses his face in an accident and proceeds to obtain a new face for himself. With a new 'mask', the protagonist sees the world in a new way and even goes so far as to have a clandestine affair with his estranged wife. There is also a subplot following a hibakusha woman who has suffered burns to the right side of her face. In the novel, the protagonist sees this character in a film (click link for my post).

The Ruined Map (1967) - The story of an unnamed detective, hired by a beautiful, alcoholic woman, to find clues related to the disappearance of her husband. In the process, the detective is given a map (a ruined one), to help him - this turns out to be more like a metaphor of the guidelines one should have in life. The impossibility of finding any relevant clues to solve the mystery leads the main character to an existential crisis, building slowly from inside, and this finally puts him in the position of identifying himself with the man he was supposed to find.

These are just two of around eight English translated novels and at least one short story collection from this fabulous writer, and I mean fabulous with all its connotations. Kobo Abe, manages to astound and amaze and yet remain within the realms of what could be defined as the mundane reality of the world about us.

For more information I will be posting a version of this post on my blog at a later date, with all the Novels and a synopsis of them.

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Thanks again, Gary :)  Abe is another writer I should really have read more of.  Apart from a couple of short stories, I've only managed to get to his most famous work, The Woman in the Dunes.  More to come, I'm sure...

And how about you?  What is your favourite Kobo Abe book?  Just leave a comment in the usual place if your favourite hasn't been mentioned :)