A family has gathered in a mansion to discuss the inheritance of a wealthy grandfather’s estate. It is a familiar mystery setup, and one that risks cliché, but Yasuhiko Nishizawa takes it into exciting new territory in The Man Who Died Seven Times. Nearly the whole story occurs within a single repeating day, much like the time-looping premise of the classic film Groundhog Day. Faced with his grandfather’s murder, the protagonist must sort out the nature of the crime (and try to prevent it) by altering the course of that day’s events.
Japan
In Mistress Koharu, a Hungarian love doll comes to life, turning heads as she stalks the streets of Tokyo, while the man who bought her—Akira—strings along two other relationships in a spectacular feat of multitasking greed that benefits no one, least of all him. Written in Japanese by Noboru Tsujihara and translated by Kalau Almony, the novel, leaning bizarre and absurdist, is still an insightful meditation on lust, power, and greed.
How did Tokyo—Japan’s capital, global city, tourist hotspot and financial center—get to where it is today? Tokyo—or then, Edo—had a rather unglamorous start, as a backwater on Japan’s eastern coast before Tokugawa decided to make it his de facto capital.
Izumi lost her husband and her job. Now she spends her time doing craft projects like sewing handmade stuffed animals. She has come to realize that she spent 20 years acting the role of “successful woman”.
It never rains but it pours. From having no English translations of Akutagawa Prize-winning Rie Qudan, three of her novels have (or soon will have) become available in a matter of months, the first two—“Schoolgirl” and “Bad Music”—in a combined volume from Australian publisher Gazebo and Sympathy Tower Tokyo from Penguin in Britain and Summit in the US.
Tae Kudo is a neurotic 46-year-old woman who has become something of a hypochondriac in the early months of the coronavirus pandemic. Some of her experiences will be deeply familiar to most readers—like her caution about masking or disinfecting her groceries. Others, like her hyperfixation on conscious capitalism, the environmental impact of her actions, or even refusing to be in the same room as a houseguest, may not.
The Russians came late to Japan, arriving after the Portuguese and other European powers. But as soon as they arrived, Russia tried to use spies and espionage to learn more about their neighbor—with various degrees of success. Sometimes, it failed miserably, like Russia’s early attempts to make contact with pre-Meiji Japan, or the debacle during the Russo-Japanese War. Other times, they were wildly successful, like during the Battle of Khalkin Gol or with Richard Sorge’s spy ring during the Second World War.
For centuries, scribes across East Asia used Chinese characters to write things down–even in languages based on very different foundations than Chinese. In southern China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam, people used Chinese to read and write–and never thought it was odd. It was, after all, how things were done.
The ghosts of those wronged in war invariably call out for vengeance. When the conflict is a civil war, all the more so. Families may be split apart, feuds started, and children called upon to settle scores they weren’t alive to start. The civil war that swept through China from 1927 to 1949 is no exception, and the continued tension between Taiwan and the Chinese mainland is the legacy of that conflict. In his novel Ryu—translated into English by Alison Watts—Akira Higashiyama explores the history of the Chinese Civil War and the conflicts it engenders generations later. Although originally written in Japanese, Ryu (a transliteration of the novel’s Japanese title) is a thoroughly Taiwanese novel that takes readers on an exciting odyssey through life in Taipei in the 1970s.
Kōhaku, the annual singing competition between the red and white teams, is a popular New Year’s event in Japan. In One Hundred Flowers, mother and son gather to celebrate the holiday at home by watching the program and eating dinner—a poignant reminder of how their relationship has changed over time. As a single mother, Yuriko was solely responsible for her son’s upbringing, but as the only child, Izumi increasingly finds himself taking care of his mother now as her memory begins to deteriorate.
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