Book Lists

Japanese Fiction in English Translation by Author

This list includes only novels written for adults for the simple reason that the corpus of Japanese literature is just too expansive. You won’t find plays, poems, manga, light novels, children’s books, or books clearly written for a young adult audience.

• Authors A-K
• Authors M-Z

Be sure to check out our other booklists:

• 2023 Upcoming Japanese Fiction Releases (updated July 2023)
• Audiobooks of Japanese Literature in Translation (updated December 2022)
• Free-to-Read Modern Japanese Fiction

These booklists are linked to specific RJL episodes:

• Japanese Children’s Literature in English Translation
  • Episode 27: Japanese Children’s Literature
• SF! A Booklist of Japanese Science Fiction in Translation
  • Episode 24: SF! Japanese Science Fiction

Here’s a list of premodern Japanese texts and translations from Meiji Gakuin University.

And if you’re looking for more books for kids or young adults, take a look at the Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.

Anthologies of Japanese Literature

• Autumn Wind and Other Stories
• The Best Japanese Science Fiction Stories
• The Book of Tokyo: A City in Short Fiction
• The Columbia Anthology of Japanese Literature
• Ellery Queen’s Japanese Mystery Stories
• Digital Geishas and Talking Frogs: The Best 21st Century Short Stories from Japan
• Granta 127: Japan
• Hanzai Japan: Fantastical, Futuristic Stories of Crime from and about Japan
• Heaven’s Wind: A Dual-Language Anthology of Contemporary Japanese Writing
• In Ghostly Japan: Spooky Stories with the Folklore, Superstitions and Traditions of Old Japan
• Inside and Other Short Fiction: Japanese Women by Japanese Women
• Kaiki: Uncanny Tales from Japan series
• Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things
• March Was Made of Yarn
• Modern Japanese Literature: From 1868 to the Present Day
• Monkey Brain Sushi: New Tastes in Japanese Fiction
• Monkey Business: New Writing from Japan
• Mother of Dreams and Other Stories: Portrayals of Women in Modern Japanese Fiction
• Murder in Japan: Japanese Stories of Crime and Detection
• New Japanese Voices: The Best Contemporary Fiction from Japan (2015)
• New Penguin Parallel Text: Short Stories in Japanese
• The Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories
• Rabbits, Crabs, Etc.: Stories by Japanese Women
• Three-Dimensional Reading: Stories of Time and Space in Japanese Modernist Fiction
• The Showa Anthology: Modern Japanese Short Stories
• Speculative Japan series
• A Tokyo Anthology
• Tokyo Fragments: Short Stories of Tokyo by Five of Japan’s Leading Contemporary Writers (2005)

To the best of my knowledge, I’ve followed the Western convention of personal name first. All links are affiliate links to Bookshop.org or Libro.fm. Support local bookstores!