Just in time for #JanuaryinJapan. Get an overview of the history of Japanese literature in just 31 days of listening.

The texts mentioned on this list are in more-or-less chronological order by publication. Descriptions are adapted from episode descriptions.

Support Read Japanese Literature by buying your #JanuaryinJapan books through our Bookshop.org bookstore.

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Read Japanese Literature’s very first episode covers The Kojiki. Gods having sex, founding of the imperial dynasty, and some of the origins of WWII. Plus thoughts on the role of women in early Japanese history.

• Purchase The Kojiki (translated by Gustav Heldt).

The Uncanny Japan podcast presents “The Bamboo Cutter and the Moon Princess”, called Kaguya-hime in Japanese. It’s an old tale—one of the oldest recorded tales in Japanese—that some people believe talks about otherworldly visitors. (Uncanny Japan’s episode page includes a full transcript.)

New Book East Asia’s Tokurō Yamamoto interviews Joshua S. Mostow about his book, An Ise Monogatari Reader: Contexts and Receptions. Tales of Ise is one of the most important works of literature from ancient Japan.

• Purchase The Tales of Ise (translated by Peter MacMillan).

Read Japanese Literature covers Japan’s oldest novel, The Tale of Genji. A hero who is a paragon of beauty with an extreme Oedipus complex.

• Purchase The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu (translated by Royall Tyler).
• Purchase The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu (translated by Dennis Washburn) as an audiobook.

More on Genji. A History of Japan podcast sets court politics aside to explore the life and work of Murasaki Shikibu, the eleventh-century lady-in-waiting who penned a work which is considered by many scholars to be the world’s first novel.

Read Japanese Literature takes a look at the great samurai epic The Tale of the Heike and the rise of the samurai class.

• Purchase The Tale of the Heike (translated by Royall Tyler).

Read Japanese Literature talks about two central genres of Medieval Japanese literature—the warrior ballad and Noh drama. We’ll see two characters from The Tale of the Heike again, including the valiant female warrior Tomoe. This time, she’s a mournful ghost.

Enjoy the story of a vengeful would-be lover who turns into a 40-foot snake, a sharp-witted woman with criticisms of her husband’s equipment and a curmudgeonly Buddhist priest who learns to love poetry. Read Japanese Literature talks about setsuwa—medieval Japanese anecdotes.

• Purchase Tales of Times Now Past: Sixty-Two Stories from a Medieval Japanese Collection (translated by Marian Ury).

Read Japanese Literature asks the important questions about literature in Edo Japan: How does “this fleeting world” become a name for the red-light district. What did reading look like in early Modern Japan? And how many dildos does a man need to pack for a trip to the Island of Women? (This episode is marked mature.)

• Purchase Traditional Japanese Literature: An Anthology, Beginnings to 1600 edited by Haruo Shirane.

New Books East Asia’s Jingyi Li interviews Glynne Walley about his translation of Eight Dogs. Kyokutei Bakin’s 19th-century samurai tale is one of the monuments of Japanese literature.

• Purchase Eight Dogs, or Hakkenden by Kyokutei Bakin’s Eight Dogs (translated by Glenne Walley).

Read Japanese Literature talks about Ueda Akinari and his Tales of Moonlight and Rain, some of the most influential Japanese ghost stories ever written. A raging intellectual debate A supernatural party game And a friend just dying to keep his promises

• Purchase Tales of Moonlight and Rain by Ueda Akinari (translated by Anthony Chambers).

The Japan Station podcast, takes up creepy apartments and Japanese ghosts with Japanese folklore expert, writer, and translator Zack Davisson.

History of Japan profiles one of the great Western interpreters of Japan: Lafcadio Hearn. How did some Anglo-Greek kid end up in Japan by way of New Orleans, and why do we still care about him today?

• Purchase In Ghostly Japan: Japanese Legends of Ghosts, Yokai, Yurei and Other Oddities by Lafcadio Hearn.
• Purchase In Ghostly Japan: Japanese Legends of Ghosts, Yokai, Yurei and Other Oddities by Lafcadio Hearn as an audiobook.

Uncanny Japan presents “The Dream of Akinosuke”,  Lafcadio Hearn’s translation of a sweet Japanese (originally Chinese) folktale. In it you’ll learn how insects can manipulate a person’s soul. (Uncanny Japan’s episode page includes a full transcript.)

In this episode, Read Japanese Literature looks at the Meiji Era of Japanese history and its literature. The shogunate is replaced. Japan looks outward to the West, inward toward itself. And a man named Natsume Soseki chronicles it all from the perspective of a stray cat.

• Purchase I Am a Cat by Natsume Soseki (translated by Aiko Ito and Graeme Wilson).
• Purchase I Am a Cat by Natsume Soseki as an audiobook (translated by Aiko Ito and Graeme Wilson).

Meiji at 150 talks with Dr. Melek Ortabasi about children’s literature in the Meiji Period and folklore themes in Japanese popular culture today.

Read Japanese Literature talks about women as they take up a prominent position in the story of Japanese literature for the first time in almost 1000 years. Special focus on Ichiyō Higuchi and her best-beloved story “Takekurabe”.

• Purchase In the Shade of the Spring Leaves by Robert Lyons Danly.This book includes translations of nine of Higuchi’s stories, including “Child’s Play”.

More on Ichiyo Higuchi. Japan Archives looks into her fascinating life, its hardships, and how she turned herself towards a career of writing. She creating exceptional pieces which are now considered great examples of writing from the Meiji Era.

The father of the Japanese short story shares his dark vision about what it means to be an artist. Read Japanese Literature takes a look at Japan in the 1910s and 1920s, the era of the Taisho Democracy and the heyday of Japan’s literary magazines and serial novels.

• Purchase Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa (translated by Jay Rubin).

Read Japanese Literature talks about the I-Novel—the highest form of literature in Japan in the 1910s and 20s. Special focus on the life and work of Osamu Dazai, plus the question, “What does it take to get disqualified as a human being?”

• Purchase No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai (translated by Donald Keene).
• Purchase No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai as an audiobook (translated by Donald Keene).

Read Japanese Literature talks about the 1930s and 40s in Japan—fascism, WWII, and the American Occupation. How did 20 years of censorship shape Japanese literature? Also a closer look at the life and work of Akiyuki Nosaka.

• Purchase Akiyuki Nosaka’s short story collection The Whale That Fell in Love with the Submarine (translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori).

Read Japanese Literature talks about the literature of change in the 1960s—how writers took on questions about what it meant to be Japanese in the post-war era and what was the continuing role of Japanese tradition. Includes special looks at Yukio Mishima and Kenzaburo Oe.

• Purchase Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids by Kenzaburo Oe (translated by Paul St. John MacKintosh and Maki Sugiyama)
• Purchase Spring Snow by Yukio Mishima (translated by Michael Gallagher).

New Books East Asia’s Amanda Kennell interviews manga historian Ryan Holmberg. Holmberg recently translated Murasaki Yamada’s 1980s “feminist examination of the fraying of Japan’s suburban middle-class dreams”, Talk to My Back.

• Purchase Talk to My Back by Murasaki Yamada (translated by Ryan Holmberg).

Read Japanese Literature talks about Japan’s bubble economy of the 1980s and the work of Banana Yoshimoto. Runaway consumer spending. Everything kawaii. A Nobel laureate’s contempt. And a young author whose career challenged the publishing powers that be.

• Purchase Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto (translated by Megan Backus).

The bookclub podcast Books & Boba looks at Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami (translated by Philip Gabriel), a metaphysical coming-of-age story with talking cats, demon brand avatars, and lots of “icky sex”—their words.

• Purchase Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami (translated by Philip Gabriel).
• Purchase Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami as an audiobook (translated by Philip Gabriel).

Dr. Rebecca Copeland documents “unruly women” for Meiji at 150—from the goddess Izanami to activists and female writers of the Meiji and Taisho Eras, to contemporary writer Natuso Kirino.

• Purchase The Goddess Chronicle by Natsuo Kirino (translated by Rebecca Copeland).

Read Japanese Literature explains why there is such a wealth of contemporary books by Japanese women available in English. Special look at Sayaka Murata, Convenience Store Woman, and the translation collective Strong Women, Soft Power.

• Purchase Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata (translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori).
• Purchase Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata as an audiobook (translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori).

The Japan Station Podcast talks to Allison Markin Powell about translating Japanese literature: challenges, fighting for credit, Strange Weather in Tokyo, and Lady Joker.

• Purchase Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami (translated by Allison Markin Powell).

Books on Asia’s Amy Chavez meets up with Juliet Winters Carpenter to talk about her 70 or so translated works of Japanese literature including Shion Miura’s The Great Passage and Minae Mizumura’s A True Novel.

• Purchase The Great Passage by Shion Miura (translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter).
• Purchase The Great Passage by Shion Miura as an audiobook (translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter).

The Deep in Japan Podcast speaks with Motoyuki Shibata, premier translator and founder of the English-language literary journal Monkey. Monkey is one of the best sources of contemporary translated short stories.

• Purchase 2023’s Monkey: New Writing from Japan.

More to listen to:

Asian Review of Books: The Asian Review of Books is the only dedicated pan-Asian book review publication. Widely quoted, referenced,  republished by leading publications in Asian and beyond and with an archive of more than two thousand book reviews, the ARB also features long-format essays by leading Asian writers and thinkers, excerpts from newly-published books and reviews of arts and culture. It provides an unparalleled forum for discussion of key contemporary issues by Asians for Asia and a vehicle of intellectual depth and breadth where leading thinkers can write on the books, arts and ideas of the day. A weekly podcast was added in 2021.

Books and Boba: Books & Boba is a book club and podcast dedicated to spotlighting books written by authors of Asian descent. Every month, hosts Marvin Yueh and Reera Yoo pick a book by an Asian or Asian American author to read and discuss on the podcast. In addition to book discussions, they also interview authors and cover publishing news, including book deals and new releases.

Books on Asia: Books on Asia is your guide to finding quality books on Japan and Asia. By offering thought-provoking content in the form of book excerpts, reviews, literary criticism, author interviews and a podcast, we hope to create an intelligent space for people to explore issues on Asia in-depth. 

Deep in Japan: The Deep in Japan Podcast provides rich and insightful interviews with people who have lived in Japan. The show seeks to get under the surface and explore Japan through the rich and variegated experiences of the people who know it best.

• Deep in Japan—Yukio Mishima with Damian Flanagan: In this episode, we speak with author and critic Damian Flanagan about his most recent book, a biography of Yukio Mishima.
• Deep in Japan—Roland Kelts on Contemporary Japanese Fiction & Japanamerica: Roland Kelts is a Tokyo-based writer, journalist, scholar, and authority on Japanese and Western cultures.

Japan Station Podcast: Discover Japan through conversations with fascinating people. Every episode, host Tony Vega is joined by a guest to talk about all aspects of Japan, including the Japanese language, history, Japanese pop culture, food, anime, manga, movies, music, comedy, the impact of Japanese culture around the world, underground social movements, social issues in Japan, and much more.

• Japan Station 72—Black Box: Discussing the Shiori Ito Story (Allison Markin Powell Part 1): On this episode of the Japan Station podcast, translator Allison Markin Powell discusses the story of Shiori Ito and the newly published English version of the book Black Box: The Memoir That Sparked Japan’s #MeToo Movement.
• Japan Station 86—J-EN Translations-Chatting About Learning Japanese, Translation & More w. Jenn O’Donnell: On this episode of the Japan Station podcast, we’re talking about translation, learning Japanese and more with translator/podcaster Jenn O’Donnell.

The History of Japan Podcast: For over a decade, Isaac Meyer has been podcasting about Japanese history. The History of Japan Podcast takes listeners from prehistory to the present day.

• History of Japan 5—Dream on a Spring Night: This week we’re going to cover the Genpei War between the Minamoto and Taira families and the collapse of the Heian system. We’ll also be covering the formation of the first samurai-dominated government in history, the Kamakura Bakufu.
• History of Japan 61—Akutagawa Ryunosuke: This week… Akutagawa Ryunosuke, one of the foremost writers of modern Japan.
• History of Japan 355—Tales of Moonlight and Rain: This week, we’re talking about one of Japan’s most famous collections of supernatural tales, the fantastic Ugetsu Monogatari (Tales of Moonlight and Rain) from 1776.

Meiji at 150: In the Meiji at 150 Podcast, host Tristan Grunow (UBC) interviews specialists of Japanese history, literature, art, and culture.  Topics covered will range from the position of the Meiji Restoration and Meiji Period in each scholar’s research, to how they view the significance of the Restoration in Japanese and global history, and finally to how they teach the Meiji Period in their classrooms.

• Episode 6—Dr. Christina Yi: Dr. Yi reads the Meiji Period from the perspective of literary studies and discusses the impacts of the Meiji Restoration on writers in Japan, especially Korean and Korean-Japanese writers composing literature in Japanese.
• Episode 20—Dr. Jack Jacobowitz: Dr Jacobowitz (Yale) chronicles internal sources for Meiji Period developments in Japanese literary practices and techniques, placing Japan in dialogue with global trends and world history.
• Episode 56—Dr. Indra Levy: Dr. Indra Levy underlines the importance of translation in Meiji-period transformations in Japanese language, literature, and culture. 
• Episode 71—Dr. Michael Dylan Foster: Dr. Foster guides us into the realm of yōkai, or supernatural spirits and monsters, as an introduction to the study of Japanese folklore.
• Episode 87—Dr. Deborah Shamoon: Dr. Deborah Shamoon redraws depictions of the shōjo, or adolescent women, in Japanese cultural production in the Meiji and Taishō period, drawing connections between literature and new understandings of adolescent women’s roles in society.

New Books—East Asian Studies: New Books in East Asian Studies and New Books Japan Studies are author-interview podcast channels in the New Books Network.

Read Japanese Literature: Read Japanese Literature is a podcast about Japanese literature and some of its best works.

• Episode 16—Writing about Japan’s “Have-Nots”: Post-bubble Japan. The history of socially-conscious Japanese literature. And Yu Miri’s Tokyo Ueno Station, a powerful examination of Tokyo by one of the most invisible people imaginable—the ghost of a homeless day laborer.
• Episode 17—The Smile of the Mountain Witch: Is she a man-eating crone? Is she a lonely wanderer? Or is she a sensual matriarch? However you define her, she’s the yama-uba—Japan’s legendary mountain witch.
• Episode 18—Cats in Japanese Literature: Today, we’re going to look at cats in Japanese literature. We’ll start with the history of cats in Japan. We’ll move on to cats in Japanese folklore and fiction, including the work of Haruki Murakami. And finally we’ll end with a discussion of our readers’ choice, “The Town of Cats” by Sakutaro Hagiwara.

Uncanny Japan: Uncanny Japan is the brainchild of author Thersa Matsuura. Thersa has lived over half her life in Small Town, Japan, first arriving back in 1990 to study at the University of Shizuoka for two years. Her fluency in the language as well as her immersion in the culture allow her to do quite a bit of research for her books and stories. She is especially passionate about strange legends, unfamiliar folktales, curious superstitions, and all those obscure aspects of the culture that aren’t generally known. As a way to more widely share these fun and fascinating facts, Thersa started the Uncanny Japan Podcast back in 2017.

• Uncanny Japan 38—“Cicada” by Lafcadio Hearn: Listen to Lafcadio Hearn’s whimsical take on the cicada (semi) while enjoying some real time cicada singing in the background.
• Uncanny Japan 82—“At Yaidzu” by Lafcadio Hearn: An essay by Lafcadio Hearn. He wrote it about the town he would stay at during summers, the town I’ve lived in for 25 plus years. Here he talks not just about the lantern floating ceremony, but also the ocean and ghost and gods and how we humans fit into it all.

(updated late May 2023)

Listed released dates listed are tentative. Descriptions are excerpted from book sellers’ or publishers’ websites. Translators are listed unless I wasn’t able to find information.

Things change quickly in the publishing industry. I’ve made my best attempt to be comprehensive. Please contact me if I have missed any titles.

Thank you to the Goodreads Japanese Literature Group for pooling information.

See a list of all new releases available to order or preorder at RJL’s Bookshop.

See a list of titles released in 2022.

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New Releases

• The Flowers of Buffoonery by Osamu Dazai

Translated by Sam Bett

“The Flowers of Buffoonery opens in a seaside sanitarium where Yozo Oba—the narrator of No Longer Human at a younger age—is being kept after a failed suicide attempt. While he is convalescing, his friends and family visit him, and other patients and nurses drift in and out of his room. Against this dispiriting backdrop, everyone tries to maintain a lighthearted, even clownish atmosphere: playing cards, smoking cigarettes, vying for attention, cracking jokes, and trying to make each other laugh…”

• Read my review of The Flowers of Buffoonery in Asian Review of Books.
• Learn more about Osamu Dazai and his No Longer Human with the RJL podcast.

• Hit Parade of Tears by Izumi Suzuki

Translated by Daniel Joseph, Sam Bett, and David Boyd

“Izumi Suzuki had ideas about doing things differently, ideas that paid little attention to the laws of physics, or the laws of the land. In this new collection, her skewed imagination distorts and enhances some of the classic concepts of science fiction and fantasy…”

• Read my review of Suzuki’s short story collection Terminal Boredom in Asian Review of Books.
• Learn more about Izumi Suzuki with the RJL podcast.

• Honeybees and Distant Thunder by Ondo Riku

Translated by Philip Gabriel

“In a small coastal town just a stone’s throw from Tokyo, a prestigious piano competition is underway. Over the course of two feverish weeks, three students will experience some of the most joyous—and painful—moments of their lives. Though they don’t know it yet, each will profoundly and unpredictably change the others, for ever…”

• Mild Vertigo by Mieko Kanai

Translated by Polly Barton

(European release expected summer 2023)

“Housewife Natsumi leads a small, unremarkable life in a modern Tokyo apartment with her husband and two sons: she does the laundry, goes on trips to the supermarket, exchanges gossip with neighbours. Tracing the conversations and interactions she has with her family and friends as they blend seamlessly into her internal monologue, Mild Vertigo explores the dizzying inability to locate oneself in the endless stream of minutiae that make up a life confined to the home, where both everything and nothing happens.”

• Love at Six Thousand Degrees by Maki Kashimada

Translated by Hadyn Trowell

(North American and European releases expected spring 2023)

“An ordinary housewife finds herself haunted by visions of a mushroom cloud and abruptly leaves her husband and son to travel alone to the city of Nagasaki, where she soon begins an affair with a young half-Russian, half-Japanese man…”

• Read my review of Love at Six Thousand Degrees in Asian Review of Books.

• The Mill House Murders by Ayatsuji Yukito

Translated by Ho-Ling Wong

“As they do every year, a small group of acquaintances pay a visit to the remote, castle-like Water Mill House, home to the reclusive Fujinuma Kiichi, son of a famous artist, who has lived his life behind a rubber mask ever since a disfiguring car accident.

This year, however, the visit is disrupted by an impossible disappearance, the theft of a painting and a series of baffling murders…”

• The Rope Artist by Fuminori Nakamura

Translated by Sam Bett

“Two detectives. Two identical women. One dead body—rapidly becoming two, then three, then four. All knotted up in Japan’s underground BDSM scene and kinbaku, a form of rope bondage which bears a complex cultural history of spirituality, torture, cleansing, and sacrifice…”

• The Thorn Puller by Hiromi Ito

Translated by Jeffrey Angles

“The first novel to appear in English by award-winning author Hiromi Ito explores the absurdities, complexities, and challenges experienced by a woman caring for her two families: her husband and daughters in California and her aging parents in Japan…”

• Read my review of The Thorn Puller at Asian Review of Books.

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Upcoming Releases

• Before We Say Goodbye by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

Translated by Geoffrey Trousselot

(North American and European releases expected fall 2023)

“The latest novel in the international bestselling Before the Coffee Gets Cold Series, following four new customers in a little Tokyo café where customers can travel back in time.”

• Read more about Before the Coffee Gets Cold.

• Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa

Translated by Eric Ozawa

(North American and European releases expected summer 2023)

“Twenty-five-year-old Takako has enjoyed a relatively easy existence—until the day her charming boyfriend Kashikoi, the man she expected to wed, casually announces he’s been cheating on her and is marrying the other woman. Suddenly, Takako’s life is in freefall. She loses her job, her friends, and her acquaintances, and spirals into a deep depression. In the depths of her despair, she receives a call from her distant uncle Ojisan…”

• The Devil’s Flute Murders by Seishi Yokomizo

Translated by Jim Rion

(North American and European releases expected summer 2023)

“This classic from the golden age of crime presents a mind-bending Japanese mystery from the great Seishi Yokomizo, whose fictional detective Kosuke Kindaichi is a pop culture phenomenon akin to Sherlock Holmes. This time the beloved scruffy sleuth Kosuke Kindaichi investigates a series of gruesome murders within the feuding family of a brooding, troubled composer, whose most famous work chills the blood of all who hear it…”

• Dragon Palace by Hiromi Kawakami

Translated by Ted Goossen

(North American and European releases expected fall 2023)

“These eight stories are masterpieces of metamorphosis and transformation, infused with Kawakami’s unique brand of humor and beauty. Moles, octopuses, and hippopotamuses interact with humans in a revelatory dance.”

• The End of August by Yu Miri

Translated by Morgan Giles

(North American and European releases expected late summer 2023)

“In 1930s Japanese-occupied Korea, Lee Woo-cheol was a running prodigy and a contender for the upcoming Tokyo Olympics. But he would have had to run under the Japanese flag. Nearly a century later, his granddaughter is living in Japan and training to run a marathon herself. She summons Korean shamans to hold an intense, transcendent ritual to connect with Lee Woo-cheol. When his ghost appears, alongside those of his brother Lee Woo-Gun, and their young neighbor, who was forced to become a comfort woman to Japanese soldiers stationed in China during World War II, she must uncover their stories to free their souls…”

• Learn more about the life and work of Yu Miri with the RJL podcast.

• The Final Curtain by Keigo Higashino

Translated by Giles Murray

(North American and European releases expected early winter 2023)

A Detective Kaga novel

• Finger Bone by Hiroki Takahashi

Translated by Takami Nieda

(North American and European releases expected summer 2023)

“1942. At the turning point of the war, the Imperial Japanese Army is in retreat. On Papua New Guinea, the unnamed narrator of Finger Bone is wounded in the fighting and sent to a field hospital to recover…”

• The Forest Brims Over by Ayase Maru

Translated by Hadyn Trowell

(North American and European releases expected summer 2023)

“A woman turns herself into a forest after long being co-opted to serve as the subject of her husband’s novels–this surrealist fable challenges traditional gender attitudes and exploitation in the literary world…”

• Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again by Shigeru Kayama

Translated by Jeffrey Angles

(North American and European releases expected fall 2023)

“Although the Godzilla films have been analyzed in detail by cultural historians, film scholars, and generations of fans, Kayama’s two Godzilla novellas—both classics of Japanese young-adult science fiction—have never been available in English. This book finally provides English-speaking fans and critics the original texts with these first-ever English-language translations of Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again. The novellas reveal valuable insights into Kayama’s vision for the Godzilla story, feature plots that differ from those of the films, and clearly display the author’s strong antinuclear, pro-environmental convictions.”

• The Goodbye Cat by Hiro Arikawa

(European release expected fall 2023)

“We meet Spin, a kitten rescued from the recycling bin, whose simple needs teach an anxious father how to parent his own human baby; a colony of wild cats on a holiday island shows a young boy not to stand in nature’s way; a family is perplexed by their cat’s devotion to their charismatic but uncaring father; a woman curses how her cat constantly visits her at night; and an elderly cat, Kota, hatches a plan to pass into the next world as a spirit so that he and his owner may be together for ever..”

• Learn more about cats in Japanese literature with the RJL podcast.

• I Guess All We Have Is Freedom by Genpai Akasegawa

Translated by Matthew Fargo

(North American release expected summer 2023)

“In these stories, ostensibly quiet tales of a single dad in 1970s Tokyo, a doorknob practices radical politics, a peeled tomato smarts in pain, raw oysters tick like time bombs and gravestones provide a critique of capitalism…”

• Kappa by Ryunosuke Akutagawa

Translated by Lisa Hofmann-Kuroda and Allison Markin Powell

(North American release expected summer 2023)

“Akutagawa’s Kappa is narrated by Patient No. 23, a madman in a lunatic asylum: he recounts how, while out hiking in Kamikochi, he spots a Kappa. He decides to chase it and, like Alice pursuing the White Rabbit, he tumbles down a hole, out of the human world and into the realm of the Kappas…”

• The Mantis by Kotaro Isaka

Translated by Sam Malissa

(North American and European releases expected late fall 2023)

“Kabuto is a highly skilled assassin eager to escape his dangerous profession and the hold his handler, the sinister Doctor, has over him. The Doctor, a real physician who hands over Kabuto’s targets as ‘prescriptions’ in his regular appointments with him, doesn’t want to lose Kabuto as a profitable asset, but he agrees to let him pay his way out of his employment with a few last jobs. Only the most lucrative jobs involve taking out other professional assassins, and Kabuto’s final assignment puts him and his family—who have no idea about his double life—in danger.”

• Marshland by Otohiko Kaga

Translated by Albert Novick

(European release expected summer 2023; North American release expected fall 2023)

“An epic novel on a Tolstoyan scale, running from the pre-World War II period to the turbulence of 1960s Japan. At forty-nine, Atsuo Yukimori is a humble auto mechanic living an almost penitentially quiet life in Tokyo, where his coworkers know something of his military record but nothing of his postwar past as a petty criminal. Out of curiosity he accompanies his nephew to a demonstration at a nearby university, and is gradually drawn into a friendship, then a romance, with Wakako Ikéhata, the brilliant but mentally unstable daughter of a university professor. As some of the student radical groups turn to violence and terrorism, Atsuo and Wakako find themselves framed for the lethal bombing of a Tokyo train….”

• The Meiji Guillotine Murders by Futaro Yamada

(European release expected winter 2023)

“Japan, 1869. A time of reform and rebellion. Detectives Kazuki and Kawaji are assigned to investigate a series of seemingly impossible murders. Together with the help of a mysterious shrine maiden, can they solve each gruesome death and piece together the dark connection between them? ….”

• Nails and Eyes by Kaori Fujino

Translated by Kendall Heitzman

(European release expected summer 2023; North American release expected fall 2023)

“A young girl addresses her stepmother, who has moved in shortly after her mother’s death in unusual circumstances. The girl shows strangely detailed knowledge of the older woman’s life, and as her stepmother settles into the house, the girl’s obsession sharpens to an ever finer point…”

• Nipponia Nippon by Kazushige Abe

Translated by Kerim Yasar

(European release expected summer 2023; North American release expected fall 2023)

“Isolated in his Tokyo apartment, 17-year-old Haruo spends all his time online, researching the plight of the endangered Japanese crested ibis, Nipponia Nippon… His conclusion is simple: it is his destiny to free the birds from a society that does not appreciate them, by whatever means necessary. With his emotional state becoming ever more erratic, he begins sourcing weapons and preparing for a reckoning in this darkly ironic study of toxic masculinity…”

• The North Light by Hideo Yokoyama

Translated by Louise Heal Kawai

(European release expected fall 2023)

“Minoru Aose is an architect whose greatest achievement is to have designed the Yoshino house, a prizewinning and much discussed private residence built in the shadow of Mount Asama. Aose has never been able to replicate this triumph and his career seems to have hit a barrier, while his marriage has failed. He is shocked to learn that the Yoshino House is empty apart from a single chair, stood facing the north light of nearby Mount Asama…”

• People Who Talk to Stuffed Animals Are Nice by Ao Omae

Translated by Emily Balistrieri

(North American and European releases expected summer 2023)

“Composed of the title novella and three short stories, People Who Talk to Stuffed Animals Are Nice sensitively explores gender, friendship, romance, love, human interaction and its absence, and how a misogynistic society limits women and men…”

• The Premonition by Banana Yoshimoto

Translated by Asa Yoneda

(North American and European releases expected fall 2023)

“Yayoi, a nineteen-year-old woman from a seemingly loving middle-class family, has lately been haunted by the feeling that she has forgotten something important from her childhood. Her premonition grows stronger day by day and, as if led by it, she decides to move in with her mysterious aunt, Yukino.”

• Learn more about Banana Yoshimoto and her Kitchen with the RJL podcast.
• Read my review of The Flowers of Buffoonery in Asian Review of Books.

• The Rainbow by Yasunari Kawabata

Translated by Hadyn Trowell

(North American and European releases expected fall 2023)

“With the Second World War only a few years in the past, and Japan still reeling from its effects, two sisters—born to the same father but different mothers—struggle to make sense of the new world in which they are coming of age…”

• The Siren’s Lament: Essential Stories by Junichiro Tanizaki

Translated by Bryan Karetnyk

(North American and European releases expected fall 2023)

“These three short stories, in a gorgeous new translation by Bryan Karetnyk, distill the essence of Jun’ichiro Tanizaki’s shorter fiction: the co-mingling of Japanese and Chinese mythologies, the chillingly dark side of desire and the paper-thin line between the sublime and the depraved…”

• Read my review of Tanizaki’s short story collection Longing and Other Stories.

• Sunrise: Radiant Stories by Erika Kobayashi

Translated by Brian Bergstrom

(North American and European releases expected fall 2023)

“Sunrise is a collection of interconnected stories continuing Erika Kobayashi’s examination of the effects of nuclear power on generations of women. Connecting changes to everyday life to the development of the atomic bomb, Sunrise shows us how the discovery of radioactive power has shaped our history and continues to shape our future…”

• Read my review of Kobayashi’s Trinity, Trinity, Trinity.

• Tatami Time Machine Blues by Tomihiko Morimi

Translated by Emily Balistrieri

(North American and European releases expected fall 2023)

“In the boiling heat of summer, a broken remote control for an air conditioner threatens life as we know it in this reality-bending, time-slipping sequel to The Tatami Galaxy.“

• Learn more about the life and work of Tomihiko Morimi with the RJL podcast.

• This Is Amiko , Do You Copy? by Natsuko Imamura

Translated by Hitomi Yoshio

(North American and European releases expected fall 2023)

“Other people don’t seem to understand Amiko. Whether eating curry rice with her hands at school or peeking through the sliding doors at her mother’s calligraphy class, her curious, exuberant nature mostly meets with confusion.

When her mother falls into a depression and her brother begins spending all his time with a motorcycle gang, Amiko is left increasingly alone to navigate a world where she doesn’t quite fit…”

• Read my review of Imamura’s The Woman in the Purple Skirt.

• What You Are Looking for Is In the Library by Michiko Aoyama

Translated by Alison Watts

(North American and European releases expected fall 2023)

“‘What are you looking for?’ asks Tokyo’s most enigmatic librarian, Sayuri Komachi. But Komachi is no ordinary librarian. Naturally, she reads every book on her shelf, but she also has the unique ability to read the souls of anyone who walks through her door. Sensing exactly what they’re looking for in life, she provides just the book recommendation they never knew they needed to help them find it…”

Read about Japanese books in English translation published in 2022.

Just in time for August and Women in Translation Month, here’s a list of resources about Japanese women writers for listening and watching.

The texts mentioned on this list are in more-or-less chronological order by publication. Descriptions are adapted from episode descriptions.

Support Read Japanese Literature by buying your #witmonth books through our Bookshop.org bookstore.

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Historian Isaac Meyer talks about Ono no Komachi, a mysterious poet from the 800s whose poems were used to construct a fictional persona entirely separate from who she actually was.

Historian Isaac Meyer talks about the social position of women in the Heian Era, especially the story of one “particularly badass woman”: the poet and “femme fatale” Izumi Shikibu.

Read Japanese Literature covers Japan’s oldest novel, The Tale of Genji. A hero who is a paragon of beauty with an extreme Oedipus complex.

More about Murasaki Shikibu from historian Isaac Meyer. Why do we know so little about who she was? What inspired her to write Genji? Why does he dislike her work so viscerally? And how did it become so famous?

On the New Books East Asia podcast Jingyi Li talks to Dr. Takeshi Watanabe about A Tale of Flowering Fortunes, which covers about 150 years of births, deaths, & happenings in late Heian society. Dr. Watanabe the book is an exorcism of embittered spirits whose stories needed to be retold to ensure peace.

Historian Isaac Meyer covers the fascinating tale of Sei Shonagon and the Makura no Soushi, or Pillow Book. Why is a collection of anecdotes considered to be one of Japan’s greatest literary classics?

On the New Books East Asia podcast Carla Nappi talks to Dr. Christina Laffin about Nun Abutsu, a 13th-century poet, scholar, teacher, and prolific writer. Laffin’s book is Rewriting Medieval Japanese Women: Politics, Personality, and Literary Production in the Life of Nun Abutsu.

Historian Isaac Meyer covers the life and career of Tokugawa-era poet Kaga no Chiyo, a shopkeeper’s daughter-turned-nun-turned-haiku master.

On the Books on Asia podcast, Dr. Judith Pascoe discusses the popularity of Emily Brontë in Japan.

Read Japanese Literature covers Ichiyo Higuchi and Meiji Women writers.

More about Ichiyo Higuchi from historian Isaac Meyer. Meyer talks about her story, her writing, her legacy, and her tragically short career.

Meiji at 150 hosts Dr. Deborah Shamoon on shōjo (adolescent women) in the Meiji and Taishō period, including the work of Miyake Kaho and Misora Hibari.

On the Books on Asia podcast, Drs. Rebecca Copeland and Linda Ehrlich talk about their anthology Yamamba: In Search of the Japanese Mountain Witch, including author Minako Oba‘s story “Smile of the Mountain Witch”.

The Japan Foundation of New York’s Literary Series hosts author Yoko Ogawa and translator Stephen Snyder discussing the novel The Memory Police.

Books and Bao discusses An I-Novel by Minae Mizumura, translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter. An I-Novel is regarded as the first bilingual novel: a book that blends memoir and fiction, tracing the life of a Japanese writer growing up in New York City.

The Japan Foundation of New York’s Literary Series hosts author Sachiko Kashiwaba and translator Avery Fischer Udagawa discussing Temple Alley Summer—a magnificent middle grade novel about the power of stories.

The Japan Foundation of New York’s Literary Series hosts author Yu Miri and translator Morgan Giles discussing the novel Tokyo Ueno Station, which won the 2020 National Book Award for Translated Literature.

The Japan Foundation New York’s Literary Series hosts author Hiroko Oyamada and translator David Boyd discussing the novel The Hole.

Books and Boba discusses Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata, translated by by Ginny Tapley Takemori. A short novel about woman who finds it hard to interact with people, who finds contentment in the routines of working at a convenience store.

The Japan Foundation of New York’s Literary Series hosts author Aoko Matsuda and translator Polly Barton discussing Where the Wild Ladies Are, Japanese folk stories retold as feminist fables.

More about Aoko Matsuda from the National Centre for Writing. Translator Polly Barton and Voices from Japan host a 2-part conversation about “one of Japan’s most promising young writers”.

Books and Bao discusses Solo Dance by Li Kotomi, translated by Arthur Reiji Morris. Willow Heath describes, “A beautiful and difficult novel about depression, queerness, trauma, and fear.”

The Japan Foundation of New York’s Literary Series hosts author Sayaka Murata and translator Ginny Tapley Takemori discussing the novel Earthlings.

More about Sayaka Murata, “the queen of punk literature”, from Books and Bao.

Books and Bao discusses The Woman in the Purple Skirt by Natsuko Imamura, translated by Lucy North. Willow Heath describes, “a Japanese novel that explores our relationships to one another as strangers, as well as the relationship between character, narrator, and reader.”

The Japan Foundation of New York’s Literary Series hosts author Kyoko Nakajima and translators Ian McDonald and Ginny Tapley Takemori discussing the short story collection Things Remembered and Things Forgotten.

Books and Bao on The Easy Life in Kamusari by Shion Miura, translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter, “a relaxing and satisfying coming-of-age Japanese novel” and “a perfect rainy day read on a chill Sunday afternoon.”

Meiji at 150 hosts Dr. Rebecca Copeland discussing “unruly women”: the goddess Izanami, popular activists and female writers in the Meiji and Taishō Periods, and contemporary writer Kirino Natsuo.

The Japan Station podcast and translator Allison Markin Powell discuss the story of Shiori Ito and her book Black Box: The Memoir That Sparked Japan’s #MeToo Movement.

Special thank you to people and organizations that work so hard to make these resources available:

• Books and Bao (Jessica Esa and Willow Heath)—YouTube
• Books and Boba (Marvin Yueh and Reera Yoo)—Podcasts
• Books on Asia—Podcasts
• History of Japan Podcast (Isaac Meyer)—Podcasts
• The Japan Foundation New York—YouTube
• JapanKyo—Podcasts
• Meiji at 150 (The University of British Columbia)—Podcasts
• New Books East Asia—Podcasts