Japanese Archives - Page 3 of 32

Tono Monogatari by Shigeru Mizuki, translated by Zack Davisson [in Shelf Awareness]

05 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Repost, Short Stories, Translation, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW The late Shigeru Mizuki's most recent posthumous import, Tono Monogatari – in English, Tales of Tono – is as multi-layered as the eminent manga creator himself. Venerated for his magnificently detailed histories – Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths, for example – and cherished for his charming supernatural...

There’s No Such Thing as an Easy Job by Kikuko Tsumura, translated by Polly Barton [in Shelf Awareness]

29 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation

Kikuko Tsumura has already won major Japanese literary prizes – most often writing about women in the workplace. Her U.S. fiction debut, There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job, smoothly translated by award-winning Polly Barton, features a 36-year-old unnamed working woman, her anonymity convincingly...

Speak, Okinawa: A Memoir by Elizabeth Miki Brina [in Shelf Awareness]

10 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Hapa/Mixed-race, Japanese, Japanese American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Elizabeth Miki Brina claims her voice with resounding clarity in her memoir, Speak, Okinawa. As the daughter of a U.S. soldier with Jamestown ancestry and an Okinawan immigrant mother, Brina's identity was always a negotiation of race, class, privilege. By opening her stupendous book...

At the End of the Matinee by Keiichiro Hirano, translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter [in Booklist]

25 Feb, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation

The I-narrator of the opening prologue, presented rather like an author’s note, sets up a revealing frame for the love story to come even as he inserts, then immediately elides himself. “If I were absolutely faithful to the truth, I myself would have to make...

Listen-Alikes: Tell Me a (Short) Story [in Booklist]

22 Feb, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Chinese American, Fiction, Indian American, Japanese, Jewish, Korean American, Latina/o/x, Lists, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Short Stories, South Asian American, Translation

Short stories can be the perfect antidote to these days of winter blues, pandemic panic, and cabin fever. Deesha Philyaw’s debut short-story collection – The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, a much-lauded, National-Book-Award-finalist – illuminates the lives of nine Black woman with a performance from Janina...

Asadora! (vol. 1) by Naoki Urasawa, translated by John Werry [in Booklist]

12 Feb, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Repost, Translation, Young Adult Readers

Once upon a 1960s screentime, Japan’s NHK broadcast serial dramas in the mornings, a genre called “renzoku terebi shōsetsu,” literally “continuing TV novel,” shortened to “asadora,” meaning “morning drama.” Legendary Naoki Urasawa ingeniously riffs on the bygone genre, replacing “terebi” with “manga” to create Renzoku manga shōsetsu...

Moriarty the Patriot (vol. 2) by Ryosuke Takeuchi, illustrated by Hikaru Miyoshi [in Booklist]

15 Jan, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Repost, Translation, Young Adult Readers

Sherlock Holmes’ archnemesis, Professor James Moriarty, appeared in only six of Arthur Conan Doyle’s oeuvre, but popular manga-maker Ryosuke Takeuchi – with energetically animated art by Hikaru Miyoshi – continues to indulge his own empathy for villains in the second volume of many more to come. Here, the...

Tokyo Ever After by Emiko Jean [in Shelf Awareness]

06 Jan, by SIBookDragon in Fiction, Japanese, Japanese American, Repost, Young Adult Readers

After finding success with a psychological thriller, then a historical fantasy, Emiko Jean turns to contemporary romance with absolutely delightful aplomb. While the "I'm really a princess" trope is an enduringly popular narrative theme, Jean's effervescent third novel, Tokyo Ever After, is a fresh, funny, emotive,...

Fifty Words for Rain by Asha Lemmie [in Library Journal]

05 Jan, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Fiction, Japanese, Repost

While Asha Lemmie's debut – about the tribulations of an illegitimate, mixed-race granddaughter of a cousin to the royal Japanese family – might not be perfect, she certainly deserves better than this lazy aural travesty. Floundering, misrepresentative audiobook adaptations have been rerecorded and rereleased –...

Moriarty the Patriot (vol. 1) by Ryosuke Takeuchi, illustrated by Hikaru Miyoshi [in Booklist]

11 Dec, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Repost, Translation, Young Adult Readers

When Sir Arthur Conan Doyle died in 1930, his Sherlock Holmes legacy comprised four novels and 56 stories. Sherlock has since become an unstoppable literary institution, proliferating across mediums; although his archnemesis, Professor James Moriarty, only appeared in six of Doyle’s original works, his own...

Best World Literature 2020 [in Library Journal]

02 Dec, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, African, Australian, Australian Asian, Caribbean, European, Fiction, French, Japanese, Korean, North Korean, Persian, Repost, Short Stories, Translation

For three years, I've been reading along with two fabulously erudite co-horts – my Library Journal editor Barbara Hoffert and fellow LJ reviewer Lawrence Olszewski – to recognize and celebrate the best translated world literature. This year, we had well over 100 titles to discuss, debate, negotiate,...

Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, translated by Geoffrey Trousselot [in Christian Science Monitor]

20 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation, Young Adult Readers

A chance to redo the past in Before the Coffee Gets Cold Time travel and café culture yields a lovely, wise brew in a translation of Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s popular play-turned-novel. Originally debuting onstage in Japan, Before the Coffee Gets Cold won praise and awards for its playwright, Toshikazu Kawaguchi....

Sneeze by Naoki Urasawa, translated by John Werry [in Booklist]

06 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Repost, Translation

For Naoki Urasawa newbies, his latest collection (another satisfying English translation by popular manga-specialist John Werry) is a beckoning introductory primer. For aficionados, these eight stories (none titled “Sneeze”), originally published between 1995-2018, are an affirming reminder of his irrefutable genius. Urasawa’s most memorable stories feature...

Hokusai Manga by Katsushika Hokusai, edited by Kyoko Wada, translated by Polly Barton [In Shelf Awareness]

04 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

A continuous "runaway bestseller" for over two centuries, Hokusai Manga re-emerges in the U.S. in an irresistible boxed gift set. Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), renowned for his iconic The Great Wave Off Kanagawa print and the woodblock series Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji, created...

Prefecture D: Four Novellas by Hideo Yokoyama, translated by Jonathan Lloyd-Davies [in Shelf Awareness]

21 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Short Stories, Translation

Hideo Yokoyama (Seventeen) might not yet have a following in the U.S. like some of his compatriot mystery writers – Keigo Higashino and Natsuo Kirino, for example – but the acclaim he's earned in his native Japan will likely spread to English-language readers. With Jonathan...

The Hole by Hiroko Oyamada, translated by David Boyd [in Shelf Awareness]

14 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW In Hiroko Oyamada's intriguing parable-like The Hole, a young childless couple, Asa and Muneaki, trade urban for rural when Muneaki is transferred for work. They end up living rent-free next door to his parents in a conveniently vacated rental house his parents own. While...

Where the Wild Ladies Are by Aoko Matsuda, translated by Polly Barton [in Booklist]

24 Sep, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Short Stories, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Preface any storytelling format with “traditional,” and audiences will have no expectations of feminist agency. Thankfully, prizewinning Japanese writer Aoko Matsuda imagines reclamation and brilliantly transforms fairy tales and folk legends into empowering exposés, adventures, manifestos. The 17 stories – adroitly translated by UK-based Polly Barton...

Earthlings by Sayaka Murata, translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori [in Booklist]

22 Sep, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation

Akutagawa Prize-winning Sayaka Murata (Convenience Store Woman, 2018), with her lauded, chosen translator Ginny Tapley Takemori – two short stories and now two novels thus far – returns for more societally defiant, shockingly disconnected, disturbingly satisfying fiction. At 11, Natsuki is already aware she doesn’t fit...

Mujirushi: The Sign of Dreams by Naoki Urasawa, translated by John Werry [in Booklist]

13 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Repost, Translation, Young Adult Readers

Kamoda can’t stop making detrimental decisions: dodging taxes results in losing the family’s sandals business, agreeing to mass-manufacture caricature masks of a U.S. presidential candidate (who looks surprisingly like Trump) takes everything else. Kamoda’s wife has already fled, leaving their daughter, Kasumi, as the only voice...

The Sky Is Blue with a Single Cloud by Kuniko Tsurita, translated by Ryan Holmberg [in Shelf Awareness]

24 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Repost, Short Stories, Translation

An English-language debut, The Sky Is Blue with a Single Cloud is a label-defying collection of Kuniko Tsurita's gekiga – literally, "dramatic pictures," referring to more serious graphic work for adult audiences. Organized chronologically from 1966 to 1980, the historical compilation includes Tsurita's early magazine submissions as a...

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