Fiction > Japanese Fiction

In the tempestuous closing decades of the sixteenth century, the Empire of Japan writhes in chaos as the shogunate crumbles and rival warlords battle for supremacy. Warrior monks in their armed citadels block the road to the capital; castles are destroyed, villages plundered, fields put to the torch. Amid this devastation, three men dream of uniting the nation. At one extreme is the charismatic but brutal Nobunaga, whose ruthless ambition crushes all before him. At the opposite pole is the cold, deliberate Ieyasu, wise in counsel, ... read more

The midnight hour approaches in an almost empty all-night diner. Mari sips her coffee and glances up from a book as a young man, a musician, intrudes on her solitude. Both have missed the last train home. The musician has plans to rehearse with his jazz band all night, Mari is equally unconcerned and content to read, smoke and drink coffee until dawn. They realise they've been acquainted through Eri, Mari's beautiful sister. The musician soon leaves with a promise to return before dawn. Shortly afterwards Mari will be interrupted a... read more

Two prostitutes have been murdered in Tokyo. Yuriko had been working as a prostitute all her adult life, starting while still at school, where her stunning beauty compensated for what she lacked in intellect and commanded attention from older men. Kazue worked for a blue-chip company and had good career prospects, but was unpopular with colleagues and felt isolated. She chose to walk the streets at night where she hoped to get noticed. Twenty years previously both women were educated at an elite school for young ladies, and both ex... read more

At fifteen, Kafka Tamura runs away from home, either to escape a gruesome oedipal prophecy or to search for his long-missing mother and sister. And the aging Nakata, tracker of lost cats, who never recovered from a bizarre childhood affliction, finds his highly simplified life suddenly overturned. Their parallel odysseys, as mysterious to us as they are to them, are enriched throughout by vivid accomplices and mesmerizing events. Fish tumble in storms from the sky; cats and people carry on conversations; a ghostlike pimp employs a ... read more

An eclectic, eccentiric and altogether brain-bending new collection of short stories from the cult Japanese author. A young man accompanies his cousin to the hospital to check an unusual hearing complaint and recalls a story of a woman put to sleep by tiny flies crawling inside her ear; a mirror appears out of nowhere and a night-watchman is unnerved as his reflection tries to take control of him; a couple's relationship is unbalanced after dining exclusively on exquisite crab while on holiday; a man follows instructions on the b... read more

In 1948, a nineteen-year-old pearl diver's dreams of spending her life combing the waters of Japan's Inland Sea are shattered when she discovers she has leprosy. By law, she is exiled to an island leprosarium, where she is stripped of her dignity and instructed to forget her past. Her name is erased from her family records, and she is forced to select a new one. To the two thousand patients on the island of Nagashima, she becomes Miss Fuji. Although drugs arrest the course of Miss Fuji's disease, she cannot leave the colony. Instea... read more

Black Rain is centered around the story of a young woman who was caught in the radioactive "black rain" that fell after the bombing of Hiroshima. lbuse bases his tale on real-life diaries and interviews with victims of the holocaust; the result is a book that is free from sentimentality yet manages to reveal the magnitude of the human suffering caused by the atom bomb. The life of Yasuko, on whom the black rain fell, is changed forever by periodic bouts of radiation sickness and the suspicion that her future children, too, may be a... read more

Over the course of the last 12 years, Hanif Kureishi has written short fiction. The stories are, by turns, provocative, erotic, tender, funny and charming as they deal with the complexities of relationships as well as the joys of children. This collection contains his controversial story "Weddings and Beheadings", as well as his prophetic "My Son the Fanatic", which exposes the religious tensions within the muslim family unit. As with his novels and screenplays, Kureishi has his finger on the pulse of the political tensions in soci... read more

Explores ideas of love, music and the passing of time. From the piazzas of Italy to the Malvern Hills, a London flat to the 'hush-hush floor' of an exclusive Hollywood hotel, this book features characters that range from young dreamers to cafe musicians to faded stars, all of them at some moment of reckoning.

Kazuo Ishiguro has been acclaimed in The Sunday Times for 'extending the possibilities of fiction'. In Never Let Me Go he has fashioned another remarkable story - a story of love, loss and hidden truths - that takes its place among his finest work. Kathy, Ruth and Tommy were pupils at Hailsham - an idyllic establishment situated deep in the English countryside. The children there were tenderly sheltered from the outside world, brought up to believe they were special, and that their personal welfare was crucial. But for what reas... read more

Japan, 1939: Two orphaned brothers are growing up with loving grandparents who inspire them to dream of a future firmly rooted in tradition. The older boy, Hiroshi, shows signs of promise at sumo wrestling, while Kenji is fascinated by the art of Noh Theatre masks. But as the ripples of war spread, the brothers must put their dreams on hold – and then forge their own paths in a new Japan. Meanwhile, the two daughters of a renowned sumo master find their lives increasingly intertwined with the rising fortunes of their fat... read more

Go is a game of strategy in which two players attempt to surround each other's black or white stones. Simple in its fundamentals, infinitely complex in its execution, it is an essential expression of the Japanese sensibility. And in his fictional chronicle of a match played between a revered and invincible Master and a younger, more progressive challenger, Yasunari Kawabata captured the moment in which the immutable traditions of imperial Japan met the onslaught of the twentieth century. The competition between the Master of Go and... read more

Set in the late nineteenth century at a turning point in Japan's relationship with the western world, The Teahouse Fire is the story of Aurelia, a young French-American girl who, after the death of her mother, finds herself lost and alone in Japan and in need of a new family. Knowing only a few words of Japanese she hides in a tea house and is adopted by the family who own it: gradually falling in love with both the tea ceremony and with her young mistress, Yukako. As Aurelia grows up she devotes herself to the family and its faili... read more

In the Tokyo suburbs four women work the draining graveyard shift at a boxed-lunch factory. Burdened with chores and heavy debts and isolated from husbands and children, they all secretly dream of a way out of their dead-end lives. A young mother among them finally cracks and strangles her philandering, gambling husband then confesses her crime to Masako, the closest of her colleagues. For reasons of her own, Masako agrees to assist her friend and seeks the help of the other co-workers to dismember and dispose of the body. The body... read more

"A stunning work of art," the New York Observer wrote of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, "that bears no comparisons," and this is also true of this magnificent new novel, which is every bit as ambitious, expansive and bewitching. A tour-de-force of metaphysical reality, Kafka on the Shore is powered by two remarkable characters. At fifteen, Kafka Tamura runs away from home, either to escape a gruesome oedipal prophecy or to search for his long-missing mother and sister. And the aging Nakata, who never recovered from a wartime afflictio... read more

Kogito is a writer, and is in his sixties when he rekindles a childhood friendship with his estranged brother-in-law Goro. Goro sends Kogito a number of cassette tapes onto which he has recorded reflections about their friendship. But one night, Goro's message takes a profoundly unsettling turn: 'I'm going to head over to the Other Side now,' Goro says, and then Kogito hears a loud thud. After a moment of silence, Goro's voice continues: 'But don't worry, I'm not going to stop communicating with you.' Moments later, Kogito's wife r... read more

This collection of short stories, including many new translations, is the first to span the whole of Japan's modern era from the end of the nineteenth century to the present day. Beginning with the first writings to assimilate and rework Western literary traditions, through the flourishing of the short story genre in the cosmopolitan atmosphere of the Taisho era, to the new breed of writers produced under the constraints of literary censorship, and the current writings reflecting the pitfalls and paradoxes of modern life, this anth... read more

Documentary-maker Aoyama hasn't dated anyone in the seven years since the death of his beloved wife, Ryoko. Now even his teenage son Shige has suggested he think about remarrying. So when his best friend Yoshikawa comes up with a plan to hold fake film auditions so that Aoyama can choose a new bride, he decides to go along with the idea. Of the thousands who apply, Aoyama only has eyes for Yamasaki Asami, a young, beautiful, delicate and talented ballerina with a turbulent past. But there is more to her than Aoyama, blinded by his ... read more

A roller-coaster ride from the master of the Japanese psycho-thriller It's just before New Year, and Frank, an overweight American tourist, has hired Kenji to take him on a guided tour of Tokyo's nightlife. But Frank's behaviour is so odd that Kenji begins to entertain a horrible suspicion: his client may in fact have murderous desires. Although Kenji is far from innocent himself, he unwillingly descends with Frank into an inferno of evil, from which only his sixteen-year-old girlfriend, Jun, can possibly save him.

"Kokoro", meaning 'heart', is a tantalizing novel about the friendship between a young man and an enigmatic elder whom he calls Sensei. Set in the early twentieth century, when the death of the emperor Meiji gave way to a new era in Japanese politicial and cultural life, the novel enacts the transition from one generation to the next in the dynamic between Sensei, who is haunted by mysterious events in his past, and the unnamed young man, one of the new generation's elite who will inherit the coming era.