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November 22, 2024
 

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FICTION

Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Aug 9, 2014
The Crane Pavilion
The 12th full-length novel by German-born author I.J. Parker to feature crime-solving government official Sugawara Akitada, "The Crane Pavilion" takes place in Kyoto in the latter part of the Heian Period (794-1185).
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jul 26, 2014
Cypulchre
Many writers have tried in vain to emulate the cool tech-lingo-driven prose of author William Gibson's early cyberpunk fiction, and it's easy to pick those budding science-fiction writers who cast themselves as his successor — fellow Canadian Joseph MacKinnon falls into this category.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Oct 12, 2013
Pynchon's multigenre novel loses itself in glib in-jokes and pop-culture references
Thomas Pynchon's new novel prompts a question relevant to him and to all contemporary artists, from writers to directors to choreographers: If the present day is atomized, paranoid, infantile, obsessive, can a work of art capture this without taking on these attributes itself?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Oct 5, 2013
Lahiri manages to finely balance the personal and political in second novel
The immigrant experience is always fertile ground for fiction, and Jhumpa Lahiri — born in London to Bengali parents and raised in Rhode Island — has built her literary career exploring this territory as it relates to characters of Indian origin in America, with all the attendant questions of identity,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Sep 21, 2013
Protagonist returns with the burdens of later life
In popular Irish mythology it's often said that the seeds of the Celtic Tiger were sown shortly after Italia '90, when the country's team reached the quarter-finals of the World Cup soccer tournament for the first time.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Sep 21, 2013
Impressive evocations of anxiety, claustrophobia
What if the long-term survival of the human race depended on thousands of Americans being relocated to a vast underground city, with giant TV screens broadcasting a desolate landscape outside and no one allowed to leave?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Sep 7, 2013
Atwood is often lyrical, but ultimately indulgent
This is the third in Margaret Atwood's science fiction trilogy, which started with "Oryx and Crake" and progressed to "The Year of the Flood." The title of the third, MaddAddam, you will notice, is a palindrome. There is plenty of wordplay to come.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Entertainment news
Sep 4, 2013
Acclaimed sci-fi author Frederik Pohl dies at 93
Frederik Pohl, who helped shape and popularize science fiction as an influential agent, editor and award-winning author, died Sept. 2 at a hospital near his home in Palatine, Illinois. He was 93.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Aug 24, 2013
Deft campus romance between aloof professor and one-time mentor
Professor Elizabeth Stone, the heroine of Grace McCleen's incandescent second novel, is a classic campus contradiction: both quite brilliant and utterly clueless. Despite having a lauded book on Milton and a stack of learned articles to her name, her fellow human beings — indeed, her own self — remain...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Aug 10, 2013
Evocative novel bridges Japan and China, past and present
That the Western world has lost interest in Japan, and particularly in Japanese literature, and is turning its attention more and more to the colossus across the sea (China, not America) is a constant plaint on the part of Japan specialists and translators.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Aug 3, 2013
Murderous disintegration of a marriage is all too believable in first and final novel
Jodi Brett is beautiful, rich and intelligent. A psychotherapist, she is also, as A.S.A. Harrison's debut opens, "deeply unaware that her life is now peaking ... that a few short months are all it will take to make a killer of her." Because her partner of 20 years, Todd Gilbert, never a faithful man,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jul 27, 2013
Multiple perspectives in novel on the Russo-Japanese War
I asked a Japanese friend how he would characterize Shiba Ryotaro's famous historical novel, "Clouds Above the Hill." I've known its immense popularity, but Shiba had started its newspaper serialization after I left Japan in 1968, and the size of the finished work — six volumes in book form — had...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jul 13, 2013
A diary washed ashore opens up a world of multiple realities
A good read transcends into the eternal, melding the real now with a timeless present. Ruth Ozeki's "A Tale for the Time Being" is all that and more: a quietly amazing achievement, a careful construct bridging quantum physics and the role of the reader/observer, a Zen eternity of multiple realities...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jul 13, 2013
Intriguing coming-of-age story masquerading as a crime thriller
'Joyland" comes with all the horror trappings for which Stephen King is known: a sinister carnival, a grisly unsolved murder, a haunted ride.
CULTURE / Books
Jul 6, 2013
Loss of innocence in war for a youth looking for some meaning
Koji Obata, the protagonist of Hiroyuki Agawa's novel, tends not to feel strongly about things. He is, however, convinced that this detachment is an aspect of his character that he'd like to change. Early in the novel he decides that "he [is] looking for something he could confront openly, something...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jun 23, 2013
North Korea occupies Fukuoka in Murakami's alternate world
Not to be confused with another famous Japanese novelist who has the same surname, Ryu Murakami is known for being an overtly political, even subversive, writer. "From the Fatherland, With Love," his latest novel to be translated into English, cements that reputation. Taking place in an alternate world...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jun 2, 2013
Complex tale told with great narrative facility
There is a bland, almost corporate flavor to the title of Khaled Hosseini's third book, suggesting a large but windy Afghan epic. Its narrative wares are clearly advertised in the book-jacket blurb to reassure his tens of millions of worldwide readers that they will be getting the brand they want.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
May 5, 2013
Second-person narration brings home realities of poverty
Mohsin Hamid's new novel comes with a ringing endorsement on its back cover from Jay McInerney, a writer one doesn't readily associate with subcontinental fictions about escaping poverty. But McInerney can speak with authority on second-person narration, having written "Bright Lights, Big City," one...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Apr 28, 2013
Entertaining romps set against Nazi backdrop
It is 1936. Daphne Linden, the unworldly, 18-year-old daughter of a priapic Oxford professor, is sent to finishing school in Germany along with a slew of other nice young girls, all of whom unwittingly get caught up in a period of tumultuous political upheaval. At first, Daphne and her friends are more...
Ishiba delays meeting with Trump, citing legal restrictions
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba waves upon arrival for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, in Callao, Peru, on Friday.
Two of America’s biggest debt holders are dumping Treasurys
The U.S. Treasury building in Washington. Investors in Japan and China sold a pile of U.S. debt in the last quarter, just before the U.S. presidential election.
Rising sex tourism exposes loopholes in Japan's anti-prostitution law
While financial misfortunes during the COVID-19 pandemic may have driven some women to work the streets, others simply want more money to spend — or want to pay off their debts — at host clubs.
Japan ranks last in romance satisfaction for second straight year
In a survey of 31 countries, Japan ranked last in terms of those who felt loved, with just 51% of respondents saying so.
Ruling coalition and DPP strike last-minute deal over economic policy
DPP policy chief Makoto Mahaguchi speaks at the party's policy gathering in Tokyo on Wednesday.
Japan, U.K. and Italy discuss inviting more countries to joint fighter project
A new concept model of a next-generation fighter jet to be jointly developed by Japan, Britain and Italy is on display in Farnborough, Hampshire, in July.
Haruki Murakami's 'The City and Its Uncertain Walls' gives deep deja vu
For “The City and Its Uncertain Walls,” translated into English by Philip Gabriel, Haruki Murakami confronts the ghosts who won't leave him alone.
Japanese expats in Asia find community through rugby
The Taiwan Fivewoods celebrate their victory at the 2023 Asian Japanese Rugby Cup in December of last year.
In Fukushima, a weekend of prose, poetry and translation
Aomori-based writer JJ Carter presented on tabletop gaming as creative inspiration for building characters and narratives.
For Dr. Nakamats, aging is just experience in action
Though he didn't win the recent gubernatorial election in Tokyo, the 96-year-old Dr. Nakamats' run was seen as inspirational in Japan's aging society.

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