New Book Announcement: “The Short Story Collective: 13 Tales from Japan” by Andrew Innes
The Short Story Collective is a thirteen-part journey through contemporary Japan with the odd stop along the way to visit both the past and the future.
“That Was” by Sarayu Srivatsa
Neither the “Indian abroad” nor the “gaijin in Japan” novel are particularly rare, but by making an intra-Asian combination of these two, Sarayu Srivatsa has, with her latest novel That Was, turned these two sub-genres on their head.
“The Easy Life in Kamusari” by Shion Miura
The word ganbaru is ubiquitous in Japanese culture. Roughly translated, it means “persistence”, “tenacity” or “hard work”. When junior high students cram for high school entrance exams, their parents remind them, “Ganbatte!” When a 1995 earthquake killed 6,500 people and irreparably damaged more than 400,000 buildings in Kobe, the government urged people on: “Ganbaro!”
“Kintsugi: the Poetic Mend” by Bonnie Kemske
There exists a well known aphorism in Japan: “everything that has a shape, breaks.” Within the scope of traditional craftsmanship, it can be interpreted as an acknowledgement that all life, including that of objects, is rendered unique when exhibiting evidence of damage, wear, or rehabilitation. As a result, the concept of “repair” is often quite…
Podcast with Timon Screech, author of “The Shogun’s Silver Telescope: God, Art, and Money in the English Quest for Japan, 1600-1625”
An English mission to Japan arrives in 1613 with all the standard English commodities, including wool and cloth: which the English hope to trade for Japanese silver. But there’s a gift for the Shogun among them: a silver telescope.
“Monkey Man” by Takuji Ichikawa
A summer 2021 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted thirty years of worsening climate impacts—and that nothing can be done to stop it. Heat waves. Droughts. Wildfires. Flooding. Given bleak environmental news, staggering global inequality (the world’s richest 1% hold more than 40% of the world’s wealth), a resurgent refugee crisis, and…
“Temple Alley Summer” by Sachiko Kashiwaba
Not many novels open with the narrator peeing out the window. But Kazu, the protagonist of Sachiko Kashiwaba’s newly translated Temple Alley Summer, is an unapologetically average kid. His classmates nickname him “third” because he is third in his class, in sports, and in popularity. He’s just fine with that.
“Bullet Train” by Kotaro Isaka
Kotaro Isaka’s thriller Bullet Train moves as fast as the train—the Shinkansen—it takes place on and is named after. Already destined to be a movie starring the not-very-Japanese Brad Pitt and Sandra Bullock (one imagines some changes en route), Bullet Train, a guilty pleasure if there ever were one, is something of a cross between…
“Fifty Sounds” by Polly Barton
Polly Barton is a Japanese-English translator with an extraordinary output, including three novel-length projects published in English translation in the last eighteen months. Fifty Sounds is her memoir, chronicling her year teaching English on Japan’s remote Sado Island and the way it changed the trajectory of her life.
“In the Shelter of the Pine: A Memoir of Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu and Tokugawa Japan” by Ogimachi Machiko, translated by GG Rowley
If you are in Tokyo and you’re riding on the Yamanote Line, you are likely heading to one of the major shopping destinations on that line, such as Shibuya, Shinagawa, or Tokyo Station. If you are going to Tokyo Station, you will pass through Komagome, once a place in the country where people had villas…
“India: The Last Super Power” by Hiroshi Hirabayashi
Hiroshi Hirabayashi, Japan’s former ambassador to India, views India as the next superpower, joining the United States, China, and Russia at the apex of world politics. In India: The Last Super Power, part study of India’s history, culture and domestic politics, part geopolitical analysis, and part memoir, he lays out the case.
Podcast with Chris Miller, author of “We Shall Be Masters: Russian Pivots to East Asia from Peter the Great to Putin”
Russia’s position between Europe and Asia has led to differing conceptions of “what Russia is” to its leaders. Russia’s vast holdings east of the Urals have often inspired those who led Russia to look eastward for national glory, whether through trade, soft power, or outright force. Yet these Russian “pivots to Asia” often ended soon…
“The Shogun’s Silver Telescope: God, Art, and Money in the English Quest for Japan, 1600-1625” by Timon Screech
Spectators at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in 1611 thrilled to the scenic realism of the Tempest. In the opening scene, a ship founders to the cries and alarms of her drowning sailors. But among those spectators some would nevertheless invest their private fortunes in the first ships to be sent by a newly chartered trading company…
“Colorful” by Eto Mori
We all probably at one point or other in our lives have wanted a do-over. Go back to take the left fork in the road, instead of the right. Take back words said in anger, or say words not voiced. In Eto Mori’s novel, Colorful, a nameless soul from a person who committed an egregious…
“Entering the Way of the Bodhisattva” by Shantideva and “Finding the Heart Sutra” by Alex Kerr
Here are two indispensable and beautifully-written guidebooks designed to lead readers through essential Buddhist thought. One is an ancient guide in verse by the western Indian sage Shantideva (c 685-763) to becoming a bodhisattva, someone who seeks enlightenment in order to pass it on to everyone else. The other is a modern bilingual guide by…
