Classics of Japanese Literature
Explore timeless classics of Japanese literature with our curated list of must-read books. Discover masterpieces by authors like Murasaki Shikibu, Yukio Mishima, and Natsume Soseki for a deep dive into Japan's rich literary heritage.
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The Tale of Genji
by Murasaki Shikibu
The world’s first novel, in a translation that is “likely to be the definitive edition . . . for many years to come” (The Wall Street Journal) A Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition, with flaps and deckle-edged paper Written in the eleventh century, this exquisite portrait of courtly life in medieval Japan is widely celebrated as the world’s first novel. Genji, the Shining Prince, is the son of an emperor. He is a passionate character whose tempestuous nature, family circumstances, love affairs, alliances, and shifting political fortunes form the core of this magnificent epic. Royall Tyler’s superior translation is detailed, poetic, and superbly true to the Japanese original while allowing the modern reader to appreciate it as a contemporary treasure. Supplemented with detailed notes, glossaries, character lists, and chronologies to help the reader navigate the multigenerational narrative, this comprehensive edition presents this ancient tale in the grand style that it deserves.
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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 Makioka Sisters
by Junichiro Tanizaki
Four daughters of an old merchant family unknowingly face the end of a gentler way of life in Osaka, Japan in 1938.
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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 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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Kokoro
by Bishop of Hippo Soseki
Haunted by tragic secrets, Sensei slowly opens up to his young disciple, confessing indiscretions from his own student days that have left him reeling with guilt.
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The Gossamer Years
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Kagero Nikki, translated here as The Gossamer Years, belongs to the same period as the celebrated Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikuibu. This remarkably frank autobiographical diary and personal confession attempts to describe a difficult relationship as it reveals two tempestuous decades of the author's unhappy marriage and her growing indignation at rival wives and mistresses. Too impetuous to be satisfied as a subsidiary wife, this beautiful (and unnamed) noblewoman of the Heian dynasty protests the marriage system of her time in one of Japanese literature's earliest attempts to portray difficult elements of the predominant social hierarchy. A classic work of early Japanese prose, The Gossamer Years is an important example of the development of Heian literature, which, at its best, represents an extraordinary flowering of realistic expression, an attempt, unique for its age, to treat the human condition with frankness and honesty. A timeless and intimate glimpse into the culture of ancient Japan, this translation by Edward Seidensticker paints a revealing picture of married life in the Heian period.
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The Samurai
by Shūsaku Endō
Considered one of the late Shusaku Endo's finest works, THE SAMURAI seamlessly combines historical fact with a novelist's imaginings. Set in the period preceding the Christian persecutions in Japan recorded so memorably in Endo's SILENCE, this book traces the steps of some of the first Japanese to set foot on European soil.
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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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Thousand Cranes
by Yasunari Kawabata
A luminous story of desire, regret, and the almost sensual nostalgia that binds the living to the dead—from the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner and author of Snow Country. "A stunning economy, delicacy of feeling, and a painter’s sensitivity to the visible world.” —The Atlantic While attending a traditional tea ceremony in the aftermath of his parents’ deaths, Kikuji encounters his father’s former mistress, Mrs. Ota. At first Kikuji is appalled by her indelicate nature, but it is not long before he succumbs to passion—a passion with tragic and unforeseen consequences, not just for the two lovers, but also for Mrs. Ota’s daughter, to whom Kikuji’s attachments soon extend. Death, jealousy, and attraction convene around the delicate art of the tea ceremony, where every gesture is imbued with profound meaning.
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