Classic Fiction from Showa Japan (1926-1989) 2: Postwar
Explore classic fiction from postwar Showa Japan (1926-1989) with this curated list of timeless books. Discover iconic Japanese literature that shaped the era's cultural and literary landscape.
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The Setting Sun
by 太宰治
Novel of present day Japan. Reaction of an upper-class family to the war and the resultant cultural impact.
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Snow Country
by Yasunari Kawabata
This masterpiece from the Nobel Prize-winning author and acclaimed writer of Thousand Cranes is a powerful tale of wasted love set amid the desolate beauty of western Japan. • “Kawabata’s novels are among the most affecting and original works of our time.” —The New York Times Book Review At an isolated mountain hot spring, with snow blanketing every surface, Shimamura, a wealthy dilettante meets Komako, a lowly geisha. She gives herself to him fully and without remorse, despite knowing that their passion cannot last and that the affair can have only one outcome. In chronicling the course of this doomed romance, Kawabata has created a story for the ages—a stunning novel dense in implication and exalting in its sadness.
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The Temple of the Golden Pavilion
by Yukio Mishima
Because of the boyhood trauma of seeing his mother make love to another man in the presence of his dying father, Mizoguchi becomes a hopeless stutterer. Taunted by his schoolmates, he feels utterly alone until he becomes an acolyte at a famous temple in Kyoto. He quickly becomes obsessed with the beauty of the temple. Even when tempted by a friend into exploring the geisha district, he cannot escape its image. In the novel's soaring climax, he tries desperately to free himself from his fixation.
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Masks
by Fumiko Enchi
A stunning and understated debut novel of seduction and infidelity about a woman who, devastated by the death of her son, takes an increasing interest in the personal affairs of her widowed daughter-in-law. Following the devastating death of her son, Mieko Toganō takes an increasing interest in the personal affairs of her widowed daughter-in-law, Yasuko. She skillfully manipulates the relationships between Yasuko and the two men who are in love with her, encouraging a dalliance that will have terrible consequences. Meanwhile, hidden in the shadows, is Mieko’s mentally-handicapped daughter, who has her own role to play in her mother’s bizarre schemes.
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A View by the Sea
by ShĹŤtarĹŤ Yasuoka
The works contained in this volume include Shotao's prize-winning novella and five short stories.
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Toddler-hunting & Other Stories
by Taeko KĹŤno
Disquieting stories exploring women's freedom & bondage in post-WWII Japan.
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The Woman in the Dunes
by Kobo Abe
The Woman in the Dunes, by celebrated writer and thinker Kobo Abe, combines the essence of myth, suspense and the existential novel. After missing the last bus home following a day trip to the seashore, an amateur entomologist is offered lodging for the night at the bottom of a vast sand pit. But when he attempts to leave the next morning, he quickly discovers that the locals have other plans. Held captive with seemingly no chance of escape, he is tasked with shoveling back the ever-advancing sand dunes that threaten to destroy the village. His only companion is an odd young woman. Together their fates become intertwined as they work side by side at this Sisyphean task.
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A Personal Matter
by KenzaburĹŤ ĹŚe
First pub. 1964. Author's most dramatic work, won him the prestigious Shincho Literary Prize. In the novel the narrator tells how he responds to the birth and problems posed by his handicapped child. Recipient of the 1994 Nobel prize.
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The Shooting Gallery & Other Stories
by YĹ«ko Tsushima
Eight stories by one of Japan's most important women authors concern the struggles of women in a repressive society. An unwed mother introduces her children to their father . . . A woman confronts the "other woman". . . A young single mother resents her children . . . These stories touch on universal themes of passion and jealousy, motherhood's joys and sorrows, and the tug-of-war between responsibility and entrapment.
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69
by 村上龍
In 1969, they were seventeen. They read Rimbaud, played guitars, smoked pot, fell in love, rebelled against the establishment, protested the war in Vietnam, barricaded high school, and produced the first rock festival in their home town. This title presents the coming of age during a time that left its mark on baby boomers around the world. In 1969 we were seventeen. We listened to the Beatles, the Stones, the Doors, the Velvet Underground, the Grateful Dead, Cream, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Bob Dylan. We read Rimbaud, played guitars, smoked pot, fell in love, rebelled against the
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Norwegian Wood
by Haruki Murakami
From the bestselling author of Kafka on the Shore: A magnificent coming-of-age story steeped in nostalgia, “a masterly novel” (The New York Times Book Review) blending the music, the mood, and the ethos that were the sixties with a young man’s hopeless and heroic first love. Now with a new introduction by the author. Toru, a serious young college student in Tokyo, is devoted to Naoko, a beautiful and introspective young woman, but their mutual passion is marked by the tragic death of their best friend years before. As Naoko retreats further into her own world, Toru finds himself drawn to a fiercely independent and sexually liberated young woman. Stunning and elegiac, Norwegian Wood first propelled Haruki Murakami into the forefront of the literary scene.
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Kitchen
by Banana Yoshimoto
Two stories, "Kitchen" and "Moonlight Shadow," told through the eyes of a pair of contemporary young japanese women, deal with the themes of mothers, love, transsexuality, kitchens, and tragedy.
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The ShĹŤwa Anthology
by Van C. Gessel
Covering 60 years of literature, this anthology presents both establisheduthors as well as numerous writers, almost unknown in English.