Download or read book Popular Hits of the Showa Era A Novel written by Ryu Murakami and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2011-01-31 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of Audition, a wickedly satirical and wildly funny tale of an intergenerational battle of the sexes. In his most irreverent novel yet, Ryu Murakami creates a rivalry of epic proportions between six aimless youths and six tough-as-nails women who battle for control of a Tokyo neighborhood. At the outset, the young men seem louche but harmless, their activities limited to drinking, snacking, peering at a naked neighbor through a window, and performing karaoke. The six "aunties" are fiercely independent career women. When one of the boys executes a lethal ambush of one of the women, chaos ensues. The women band together to find the killer and exact revenge. In turn, the boys buckle down, study physics, and plot to take out their nemeses in a single blast. Who knew that a deadly "gang war" could be such fun? Murakami builds the conflict into a hilarious, spot-on satire of modern culture and the tensions between the sexes and generations.
Download or read book Coin Locker Babies written by Ryu Murakami and published by Pushkin Press. This book was released on 2023-08-03 with total page 514 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'A cyberpunk coming-of-age tale' Japan Times 'Encapsulates the fin de siècle cultural detonation of Japanese youth' Kirkus Two babies are left in a Tokyo station coin locker and survive against the odds, but their lives are forever tainted by this inauspicious start. Raised amidst the outcasts and misfits of Toxitown, they carve out vastly different paths: one as a bisexual rock star on a desperate search for his mother, the other as an athlete consumed by revenge against the woman who left him behind. When their twisted journeys start to intertwine, this savage and stunning story plunges headlong into a surrealistic whirl of violence. Part of the Pushkin Press Classics series: timeless storytelling by icons of literature, hand-picked from around the globe. Translated by Stephen Snyder Born in 1952 in Nagasaki prefecture, Ryu Murakami is the enfant terrible of contemporary Japanese literature. Awarded the prestigious Akutagawa Prize in 1976 for his first book, he has gone on to explore with cinematic intensity the themes of violence and technology in contemporary Japanese society. Murakami is also a screenwriter and director; among his films are Tokyo Decadence, Auditionand Because of You. His novels Sixty-Nine, Popular Hits of the Showa Era and From the Fatherland, with Love are also available from Pushkin Press.
Download or read book Almost Transparent Blue written by 村上龍 and published by Kodansha Amer Incorporated. This book was released on 2003 with total page 126 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This controversial novel touched the raw nerves of the Japanese and became a million seller within six months of publication. It is a semi-autobiographical tale of the author's youth spent amidst the glorious squalor of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll in 1970s Japan. Almost Transparent Blue is a brutal tale of lost youth in a Japanese port town close to an American military base. Murakami's image-intensive narrative paints a portrait of a group of friends locked in a destructive cycle of sex, drugs and rock'n'roll. The novel is all but plotless, but the raw and
Download or read book Tokyo Decadence written by R. Murakami and published by Рипол Классик. This book was released on 2016 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A cream-of-the-crop selection of Murakami's brilliance and piercing wit. This collection shows sides of Ryu Murakami that even avid fans may not be expecting. The intriguing, somewhat disturbing stories that Topaz was based on are included here, as are three entertaining and revealing portraits of the artist as a young man back in the Transparent Blue period of the late sixties and early seventies. We hear tales told by four very different individuals living in eighties Tokyo, each with his or her own problems but all with a thing about a certain pro baseball player, and we meet a brokenhearted young woman who finds an unexpected moment of love in the nineties and a single mother who stumbles on a ray of hope in the hard times of the noughties. Mixed in there somewhere are three linked stories about desire and obsession, with the timeless, seductive rhythms of Cuban music in the background. This book contains explicit content and is not suitable for minors. About the author: Ryu Murakami was not yet 24 when he won the prestigious Akutagawa Prize for his debut novel, Almost Transparent Blue. He has now published some forty best-selling novels, a dozen short-story collections, an armful of picture books, and a small mountain of essays. In his spare time, Ryu hosts a popular and long-running weekly TV show focusing on business and economic topics, and has for many years promoted tours and produced records for Cuban musicians. He has written and directed five feature films, of which Topaz a.k.a. Tokyo Decadence (1992) is probably the best known, and many of his novels have been made into films by other directors (notably Takashi Miike's Audition). Translated novels include Coin Locker Babies (Noma Prize for New Writers), Sixty-Nine, Popular Hits of the Showa Era, Audition, In the Miso Soup (Yomiuri Prize for Literature), Piercing, and From the Fatherland, with Love (Noma Prize for Literature and Mainichi Publishing Culture Award).
Download or read book Piercing written by Ryu Murakami and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2013-09-19 with total page 125 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Every night, Kawashima Masayuki creeps from his bed and watches over his baby girl's crib while his wife sleeps. But this is no ordinary domestic scene. He has an ice pick in his hand, and a barely controllable desire to use it. Deciding to confront his demons, Kawashima sets into motion a chain of events seeming to lead inexorably to murder...
Download or read book From the Fatherland with Love written by 村上龍 and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 680 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'From the Fatherland, with Love' is set in an alternative, dystopian present in which the dollar has collapsed and Japan's economy has fallen along with it. The North Korean government, sensing an opportunity, sends a fleet of 'rebels' in the first land invasion that Japan has ever faced. Japan can't cope with the surprise onslaught of 'Operation from the Fatherland, with Love.' But the terrorist Ishihara and his band of renegade youths - once dedicated to upseting the Japanese government - turn their deadly attention to the North Korean threat. They will not allow Fukuoka to fall without a fight.
Download or read book In The Miso Soup written by Ryu Murakami and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2009-08-03 with total page 133 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A rollercoaster ride from the cult master of the psycho-thriller 'A blistering portrait of contemporary Japan, its nihilism and decadence wrapped up within one of the most savage thrillers since The Silence of the Lambs' Kirkus 'Deft and fascinating ... A grisly tour of the darkness and confusion of the human mind' New York Times It's just before New Year, and Frank, an overweight American tourist, has hired Kenji to take him on a guided tour of Tokyo's nightlife. But Frank's behaviour is so odd that Kenji begins to entertain a horrible suspicion: his client may in fact have murderous desires. Although Kenji is far from innocent himself, he unwillingly descends with Frank into an inferno of evil, from which only his sixteen-year-old girlfriend, Jun, can possibly save him.
Download or read book 1Q84 written by Haruki Murakami and published by Bond Street Books. This book was released on 2011-10-25 with total page 1342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The long-awaited magnum opus from Haruki Murakami, in which this revered and bestselling author gives us his hypnotically addictive, mind-bending ode to George Orwell's 1984. The year is 1984. Aomame is riding in a taxi on the expressway, in a hurry to carry out an assignment. Her work is not the kind that can be discussed in public. When they get tied up in traffic, the taxi driver suggests a bizarre 'proposal' to her. Having no other choice she agrees, but as a result of her actions she starts to feel as though she is gradually becoming detached from the real world. She has been on a top secret mission, and her next job leads her to encounter the superhuman founder of a religious cult. Meanwhile, Tengo is leading a nondescript life but wishes to become a writer. He inadvertently becomes involved in a strange disturbance that develops over a literary prize. While Aomame and Tengo impact on each other in various ways, at times by accident and at times intentionally, they come closer and closer to meeting. Eventually the two of them notice that they are indispensable to each other. Is it possible for them to ever meet in the real world?
Download or read book Audition written by Ryu Murakami and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2010-01-18 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the death of his wife seven years ago, documentary maker Aoyama has not dated anyone else. Now even his teenage son, Shige, thinks that he should remarry and his best friend Yoshikawa comes up with a plan: to hold fake film auditions from which, he can choose a new bride. Of the thousands who apply, it is a beautiful ballerina, Yamasaki Asami, who captivates Aoyama. Infatuated by her fragile nature and nervous smile, he ignores his increasing sense of unease, putting aside his doubts about his new love, until it may be too late... In Audition, Ryu Murakami delivers his most subtly disturbing novel yet, confirming him as Japan's master of the psycho-thriller.
Download or read book Kitchen written by Banana Yoshimoto and published by Open Road + Grove/Atlantic. This book was released on 2015-09-15 with total page 103 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The acclaimed debut of Japan’s “master storyteller” (Chicago Tribune). With the publication of Kitchen, the dazzling English-language debut that is still her best-loved book, the literary world realized that Banana Yoshimoto was a young writer of enduring talent whose work has quickly earned a place among the best of contemporary Japanese literature. Kitchen is an enchantingly original book that juxtaposes two tales about mothers, love, tragedy, and the power of the kitchen and home in the lives of a pair of free-spirited young women in contemporary Japan. Mikage, the heroine, is an orphan raised by her grandmother, who has passed away. Grieving, Mikage is taken in by her friend Yoichi and his mother (who is really his cross-dressing father) Eriko. As the three of them form an improvised family that soon weathers its own tragic losses, Yoshimoto spins a lovely, evocative tale with the kitchen and the comforts of home at its heart. In a whimsical style that recalls the early Marguerite Duras, Kitchen and its companion story, Moonlight Shadow, are elegant tales whose seeming simplicity is the ruse of a very special writer whose voice echoes in the mind and the soul. “Lucid, earnest and disarming . . . [It] seizes hold of the reader’s sympathy and refuses to let go.” —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
Download or read book Hirohito And The Making Of Modern Japan written by Herbert P. Bix and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 832 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Pulitzer Prize In this groundbreaking biography of the Japanese emperor Hirohito, Herbert P. Bix offers the first complete, unvarnished look at the enigmatic leader whose sixty-three-year reign ushered Japan into the modern world. Never before has the full life of this controversial figure been revealed with such clarity and vividness. Bix shows what it was like to be trained from birth for a lone position at the apex of the nation's political hierarchy and as a revered symbol of divine status. Influenced by an unusual combination of the Japanese imperial tradition and a modern scientific worldview, the young emperor gradually evolves into his preeminent role, aligning himself with the growing ultranationalist movement, perpetuating a cult of religious emperor worship, resisting attempts to curb his power, and all the while burnishing his image as a reluctant, passive monarch. Here we see Hirohito as he truly was: a man of strong will and real authority. Supported by a vast array of previously untapped primary documents, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan is perhaps most illuminating in lifting the veil on the mythology surrounding the emperor's impact on the world stage. Focusing closely on Hirohito's interactions with his advisers and successive Japanese governments, Bix sheds new light on the causes of the China War in 1937 and the start of the Asia-Pacific War in 1941. And while conventional wisdom has had it that the nation's increasing foreign aggression was driven and maintained not by the emperor but by an elite group of Japanese militarists, the reality, as witnessed here, is quite different. Bix documents in detail the strong, decisive role Hirohito played in wartime operations, from the takeover of Manchuria in 1931 through the attack on Pearl Harbor and ultimately the fateful decision in 1945 to accede to an unconditional surrender. In fact, the emperor stubbornly prolonged the war effort and then used the horrifying bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, together with the Soviet entrance into the war, as his exit strategy from a no-win situation. From the moment of capitulation, we see how American and Japanese leaders moved to justify the retention of Hirohito as emperor by whitewashing his wartime role and reshaping the historical consciousness of the Japanese people. The key to this strategy was Hirohito's alliance with General MacArthur, who helped him maintain his stature and shed his militaristic image, while MacArthur used the emperor as a figurehead to assist him in converting Japan into a peaceful nation. Their partnership ensured that the emperor's image would loom large over the postwar years and later decades, as Japan began to make its way in the modern age and struggled -- as it still does -- to come to terms with its past. Until the very end of a career that embodied the conflicting aims of Japan's development as a nation, Hirohito remained preoccupied with politics and with his place in history. Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan provides the definitive account of his rich life and legacy. Meticulously researched and utterly engaging, this book is proof that the history of twentieth-century Japan cannot be understood apart from the life of its most remarkable and enduring leader.
Download or read book Cloud of Sparrows written by Takashi Matsuoka and published by Delacorte Press. This book was released on 2002-10-01 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Exotic, entertaining . . . [an] exceptional first novel.”—San Francisco Chronicle The year is 1861. After two centuries of isolation, Japan has opened its doors to the West. And as foreign ships threaten to rain destruction on the Shogun’s castle in Edo, a small group of American missionaries has arrived to spread the word of their God. They have yet to realize that their future in Japan has already been foreseen. For a young nobleman has dreamt that his life will be saved by an outsider in the New Year. . . and it is said that Lord Genji has the gift of prophecy. What happens next—when the handsome lord meets an appa rently reformed gunslinger and a woman in flight from her own destructive beauty—sets the stage for a remarkable adventure. For as this unlikely band embarks on a journey through a landscape bristling with danger, East and West, flesh and spirit, past and future, collide in ways no one—least of all Genji—could have imagined. Praise for Cloud of Sparrows “The book seizes you from start to finish.”—The Washington Post “Adventure-filled.”—Entertainment Weekly “Rich . . . with an ambitious, unexpected ending that cuts deeper than a samurai sword.”—San Francisco Chronicle
Download or read book No Longer Human written by 太宰治 and published by New Directions Publishing. This book was released on 1958 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A young man describes his torment as he struggles to reconcile the diverse influences of Western culture and the traditions of his own Japanese heritage.
Download or read book Write in Tune Contemporary Music in Fiction written by Erich Hertz and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2014-05-22 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contemporary popular music provides the soundtrack for a host of recent novels, but little critical attention has been paid to the intersection of these important art forms. Write in Tune addresses this gap by offering the first full-length study of the relationship between recent music and fiction. With essays from an array of international scholars, the collection focuses on how writers weave rock, punk, and jazz into their narratives, both to develop characters and themes and to investigate various fan and celebrity cultures surrounding contemporary music. Write in Tune covers major writers from America and England, including Don DeLillo, Jonathan Franzen, Zadie Smith, and Jim Crace. But it also explores how popular music culture is reflected in postcolonial, Latino, and Australian fiction. Ultimately, the book brings critical awareness to the power of music in shaping contemporary culture, and offers new perspectives on central issues of gender, race, and national identity.
Download or read book Emperor of Japan written by Donald Keene and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2005-06-14 with total page 957 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The renowned Japanese scholar “brings us as close to the inner life of the Meiji emperor as we are ever likely to get” (The New York Times Book Review). When Emperor Meiji began his rule in 1867, Japan was a splintered empire dominated by the shogun and the daimyos, cut off from the outside world, staunchly antiforeign, and committed to the traditions of the past. Before long, the shogun surrendered to the emperor, a new constitution was adopted, and Japan emerged as a modern, industrialized state. Despite the length of his reign, little has been written about the strangely obscured figure of Meiji himself, the first emperor ever to meet a European. But now, Donald Keene sifts the available evidence to present a rich portrait not only of Meiji but also of rapid and sometimes violent change during this pivotal period in Japan’s history. In this vivid and engrossing biography, we move with the emperor through his early, traditional education; join in the formal processions that acquainted the young emperor with his country and its people; observe his behavior in court, his marriage, and his relationships with various consorts; and follow his maturation into a “Confucian” sovereign dedicated to simplicity, frugality, and hard work. Later, during Japan’s wars with China and Russia, we witness Meiji’s struggle to reconcile his personal commitment to peace and his nation’s increasingly militarized experience of modernization. Emperor of Japan conveys in sparkling prose the complexity of the man and offers an unrivaled portrait of Japan in a period of unique interest. “Utterly brilliant . . . the best history in English of the emergence of modern Japan.”—Los Angeles Times
Download or read book Who We re Reading When We re Reading Murakami written by David Karashima and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2020-09-01 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How did a loner destined for a niche domestic audience become one of the most famous writers alive? A "fascinating" look at the "business of bringing a best-selling novelist to a global audience" (The Atlantic)―and a “rigorous” exploration of the role of translators and editors in the creation of literary culture (The Paris Review). Thirty years ago, when Haruki Murakami’s works were first being translated, they were part of a series of pocket-size English-learning guides released only in Japan. Today his books can be read in fifty languages and have won prizes and sold millions of copies globally. How did a loner destined for a niche domestic audience become one of the most famous writers alive? This book tells one key part of the story. Its cast includes an expat trained in art history who never intended to become a translator; a Chinese American ex-academic who never planned to work as an editor; and other publishing professionals in New York, London, and Tokyo who together introduced a pop-inflected, unexpected Japanese voice to the wider literary world. David Karashima synthesizes research, correspondence, and interviews with dozens of individuals—including Murakami himself—to examine how countless behind-the-scenes choices over the course of many years worked to build an internationally celebrated author’s persona and oeuvre. His careful look inside the making of the “Murakami Industry" uncovers larger questions: What role do translators and editors play in framing their writers’ texts? What does it mean to translate and edit “for a market”? How does Japanese culture get packaged and exported for the West?
Download or read book Play Among Books written by Miro Roman and published by Birkhäuser. This book was released on 2021-12-06 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How does coding change the way we think about architecture? This question opens up an important research perspective. In this book, Miro Roman and his AI Alice_ch3n81 develop a playful scenario in which they propose coding as the new literacy of information. They convey knowledge in the form of a project model that links the fields of architecture and information through two interwoven narrative strands in an “infinite flow” of real books. Focusing on the intersection of information technology and architectural formulation, the authors create an evolving intellectual reflection on digital architecture and computer science.
