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Japanese Fiction
 
Catalogue |  Rep List |  Back List  Showing 1 - 15 of 26 results
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ISBN / ISSN:
9780199583195

The Oxford Book of Japanese Short Stories order quantity
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NZ$ 35.00 each
Paperback
Author: Theodore Goossen (editor)
Published by: Oxford University Press
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 anthology offers a stimulating survey of the development of the Japanese short story. Various indigenous traditions, in addition to those drawn from the West, recur throughout the stories: stories of the self, of the Water Trade (Tokyo's nightlife of geishas and prostitutes), of social comment, love and obsession, legends and fairytales. This collection includes the work of two Nobel prize-winners: Kawabata and ... more

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ISBN / ISSN:
9781843547341

The Changeling order quantity
  +   -
NZ$ 50.00 each
Hardback
Author: Kenzaburo Oe
Published by: Atlantic Books
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 rings to tell him that Goro has jumped to his death from the roof of a building. Kogito begins a search to understand what drove his brother-in-law to suicide. The Changeling takes readers from the forests of southern Japan to the streets of Berlin in a profound exploration of the ways in which the past - both real and imagined - affects our lives.

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ISBN / ISSN:
9780143106036

Kokoro order quantity
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NZ$ 25.00 each
Paperback
Author: Natsume Soseki
Published by: Penguin Books Ltd
"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.

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ISBN / ISSN:
9780099458326

Kafka on the Shore order quantity
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NZ$ 27.00 each
Paperback
Author: Haruki Murakami (tr from Japanese Philip Gabriel)
Published by: Vintage (Random House imprint)
KAFKA ON THE SHORE follows the fortunes of two remarkable characters. Kafka Tamura runs away from home at fifteen, under the shadow of his father's dark prophesy. The aging Nakata, tracker of lost cats, who never recovered from a bizarre childhood affliction, finds his pleasantly simplified life suddenly turned upside down. Their parallel odysseys are enriched throughout by vivid accomplices and mesmerising dramas. Cats converse with people; fish tumble from the sky; a ghostlike pimp deploys a Hegel-spouting girl of the night; a forest harbours soldiers apparently un-aged since WWII. There is a savage killing, but the identity of both victim and killer is a riddle. Murakami's new novel is at once a classic tale of quest, but it is also a bold exploration of mythic and contemporary taboos, of patricide, of mother-love, of sister-love. Above all it is an entertainment of a very high order.
Jonothan Shine recommends

First ... more

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ISBN / ISSN:
9780571245000

Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall order quantity
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NZ$ 30.00 each
Paperback
Author: Kazuo Ishiguro
Published by: Faber and Faber
In a sublime story cycle, Kazuo Ishiguro 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, the characters we encounter range from young dreamers to cafe musicians to faded stars, all of them at some moment of reckoning.
Gentle, intimate and witty, this quintet is marked by a haunting theme: the struggle to keep alive a sense of life's romance, even as one gets older, relationships flounder and youthful hopes recede.


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ISBN / ISSN:
9781408800720

Audition order quantity
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NZ$ 30.00 each
Paperback
Author: Ryu Murakami
Published by: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
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 infatuation, can see, and by the time he discovers the terrifying truth it may be too late Ryu Murakami delivers his most subtle and disturbing novel yet, confirming him as Japan's master of the psycho-thriller.

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ISBN / ISSN:
9784770026095

Taiko : An Epic Novel of War and Glory in Feudal Japan order quantity
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NZ$ 80.00 each
Hardback
Author: Eiji Yoshikawa (tr from Japanese William Scott Wilson)
Published by: Kodansha Europe
This epic set in Feudal Japan begins in the closing decades of the 16th century, when the shogunate has crumbled and rival warlords battle for supremacy. During the devastation that follows, three men dream of uniting the nation -- one of which is a sandal bearer who would become Taiko, absolute ruler of Japan in the Emperor's name. Includes a heraldry chart and maps.

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, brave in battle, mature beyond ... more

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ISBN / ISSN:
9781846552502

The Housekeeper and the Professor order quantity
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NZ$ 38.00 each
Paperback
Author: Yoko Ogawa (tr from Japanese Stephen Snyder)
Published by: Harvill Secker
He is a brilliant maths professor with a peculiar problem - ever since a traumatic head injury some seventeen years ago, he has lived with only eighty minutes of short-term memory. She is a sensitive but astute young housekeeper with a ten-year-old son, who is entrusted to take care of him. Each morning, as the Professor and the Housekeeper are reintroduced to one another, a strange, beautiful relationship blossoms between them. The Professor may not remember what he had for breakfast, but his mind is still alive with elegant equations from the past. He devises clever maths riddles - based on her shoe size or her birthday - and the numbers, in all of their articulate order, reveal a sheltering and poetic world to both the Housekeeper and her little boy. With each new equation, the three lost souls forge an affection more mysterious than imaginary numbers, and a bond that runs deeper than memory.

The Housekeeper and the ... more

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ISBN / ISSN:
9780571245659

A Pale View of the Hills (Faber Firsts) order quantity
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NZ$ 15.00 each
Paperback
Author: Kazuo Ishiguro
Published by: Faber and Faber
In his highly acclaimed debut, "A Pale View of Hills", Kazuo Ishiguro tells the story of Etsuko, a Japanese woman now living alone in England, dwelling on the recent suicide of her daughter. Retreating into the past, she finds herself reliving one particular hot summer in Nagasaki, when she and her friends struggled to rebuild their lives after the war. But then as she recalls her strange friendship with Sachiko - a wealthy woman reduced to vagrancy - the memories take on a disturbing cast.

First published 1982.

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ISBN / ISSN:
9780870113642

Black Rain order quantity
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NZ$ 25.00 each
Paperback
Author: Masuji Ibuse (tr from Japanese John Bester)
Published by: kodansha international ltd
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 affected. lbuse tempers the horror of his subject with the gentle humor for which he is famous. His sensitivity to the complex web of emotions in a traditional community torn asunder by this historical event has made Black Rain one of the most acclaimed treatments of the Hiroshima story.

Review Quotes:

.!"This painful and very beautiful book gives two powerful messages-of drastic warning, yet also of ... more

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ISBN / ISSN:
9780099448570

South of the Border, West of the Sun order quantity
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NZ$ 27.00 each
Paperback
Author: Haruki Murakami (tr from Japanese Philip Gabriel)
Published by: Vintage (Random House imprint)
Growing up in the suburbs in post-war Japan, Hajime and Shimamoto had been childhood sweethearts. The two eventually lost touch but now, in their thirties, they meet up again. Hajime, now a father and husband, finds himself catapulted into the past, risking all that he has in the present.

First published in Japanese 1992; this translation 1998.

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ISBN / ISSN:
9780312379674

The Street of a Thousand Blossoms order quantity
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NZ$ 35.00 each
Paperback
Author: Gail Tsukiyama
Published by: St. Martins Press
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 father's star pupil, Hiroshi.

Gail Tsukiyama has written her masterpiece: a powerfully moving story of tradition and change, loss and renewal, and above all, of the enduring strength of family ties.

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ISBN / ISSN:
9780099488668

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman order quantity
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NZ$ 27.00 each
Paperback
Author: Haruki Murakami (Tr from Japanese Philip Gabriel & Jay Rubin)
Published by: Vintage Books
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 nightwatchman 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 back of a postcard to apply for a job, but an unknown password stands between him and his mysterious employer. In each one of these stories, Murakami sidesteps the real and sprints for the surreal. Everyday events are transcended, leaving the reader dazzled by this master of his craft. "Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman" is Murakami's most eclectic collection of stories to date, spanning five years of his writing. An introduction explains the diversity of the author's choice.

This collection first published 2006.

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ISBN / ISSN:
9780099516187

The Teahouse Fire order quantity
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NZ$ 27.00 each
Paperback
Author: Ellis Avery
Published by: Vintage Books
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 failing fortunes in the face of civil war and western intervention, and to Yukako's love affairs and subsequent marriage. But her feelings for her mistress are never reciprocated and as tensions mount in the household Aurelia begins to realise that to the world around her she will never be anything but a foreigner.

First published 2006.

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ISBN / ISSN:
9781846550485

After Dark order quantity
  +   -
NZ$ 35.00 each
Paperback
Author: Haruki Murakami (tr from Japanese Jay Rubin)
Published by: Harvill Secker
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 second time by a girl from the Alphaville Hotel; a Chinese prostitute has been hurt by a client, the girl has heard Mari speaks fluent Chinese and requests her help. Meanwhile Eri is at home and sleeps a deep, heavy sleep that is 'too perfect, too pure' to be normal; pulse and respiration at the lowest required level. She has been in this soporfic state for two months; Eri has become the classic myth - a ... more

 
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