Download or read book Rashomon and Other Stories written by Ryunosuke Akutagawa and published by Tuttle Publishing. This book was released on 2011-04-11 with total page 134 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Clear-eyed glimpses of human behavior in the extremities of poverty, stupidity, greed, vanity… Story-telling of an unconventional sort, with most of the substance beneath the shining, enameled surface." --The New York Times Book Review Widely acknowledged as "the father of the Japanese short story," Ryunosuke Akutagawa remains one of the most influential Japanese writers of all time. Rashomon and Other Stories, a collection of his most celebrated work, resonates as strongly today as when it first published a century ago. This volume includes: In a Grove: An iconic, contradictory tale of the murder of a samurai in a forest near Kyoto told through three varying accounts Rashomon: A masterless samurai contemplates following a life of crime as he encounters an old woman at the old Rashomon gate outside Kyoto Yam Gruel: A low-ranking court official laments his position all the while yearning for his favorite, yet humble, dish The Martyr: Set in Japan's Christian missionary era, a young boy is excommunicated for fathering an illegitimate child, but not all is as it seems Kesa and Morito: An adulterous couple plots to kill the woman's husband as the situation threatens to spin out of control The Dragon: A priest concocts a prank involving a dragon, but the tall tale begins to take on a life of its own With a new foreward by noted Akutagawa scholar Seiji Lippit, this updated version of a classic collection is a an excellent, readable introduction to Japanese literature.

Download or read book Representing the Other in Modern Japanese Literature written by Rachael Hutchinson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2006-09-27 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Representing the Other in Modern Japanese Literature looks at the ways in which authors writing in Japanese in the twentieth century constructed a division between the ‘Self’ and the ‘Other’ in their work. Drawing on methodology from Foucault and Lacan, the clearly presented essays seek to show how Japanese writers have responded to the central question of what it means to be ‘Japanese’ and of how best to define their identity. Taking geographical, racial and ethnic identity as a starting point to explore Japan's vision of 'non-Japan', representations of the Other are examined in terms of the experiences of Japanese authors abroad and in the imaginary lands envisioned by authors in Japan. Using a diverse cross-section of writers and texts as case studies, this edited volume brings together contributions from a number of leading international experts in the field and is written at an accessible level, making it essential reading for those working in Japanese studies, colonialism, identity studies and nationalism.

Download or read book Strange But True Stories from Japan written by Jack Seward and published by Tuttle Publishing. This book was released on 2011-07-05 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Strange but True Stories from Japan is a fascinating collection of vignettes, ranging from historical to the personal. Here you will be exposed to the goings-on of Americans serving time in Japanese prisons and the many who claimed the identity of Tokyo Rose. And learn about the bizarre habits of the eels that roam the Chikugo River. In this eclectic and, well, strange, book you'll relive-from a distance-Kamakura's hara-kiri bloodshed and discover the surprising fate of the armless geisha, Tsuma-kichi. Seward also weaves touching memoir pieces between chapters that recount hilarious instances of fractured English and shocking-to-the-average-American Japanese cuisine. Written with an eye and ear for the theatrical and for the rhythm of Japanese life, this delightful but serious romp through modern Japan brings Seward's wide and varied cultural and military background to center stage.

Download or read book A Sense of the City written by Gala Maria Follaco and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2017-10-17 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In A Sense of the City, Gala Maria Follaco examines Nagai Kafū’s (1879-1959) literary construction of urban spatialities from late Meiji through the early Shōwa period. She argues that Kafū’s urban critique was based on his awareness of the cultural sedimentation of the cityscape and of the complex relationship that it bore with the historical framework of modern Japan. With the overall aim to define Kafū’s position within pre-war Japanese literature, Follaco touches upon key issues such as memory, class difference, and language ideologies; draws connections between his sojourn abroad and strategies of “mapping” the city of Tokyo in his literature; and takes into account works previously understudied, including his biography of Washizu Kidō and his photographs.

Download or read book Kuki Shuzo written by Michael F. Marra and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2004-04-30 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kuki Shûzô (1888–1941), one of Japan’s most original thinkers of the twentieth century, is best known for his interpretations of Western Continental philosophy. His works on and of poetry are less well known but equally illuminating. During his eight years studying in Europe in the 1920s, Kuki spent time in Paris, where he wrote several collections of poetry and many short poems in the tanka style. Included in this volume are these Paris poems as well as other verses that Kuki appended to a long essay on poetry, "Rhymes in Japanese Poetry," written in 1931. Included as well are translations of two of Kuki’s major critical essays on poetry, "The Genealogy of Feelings: A Guide to Poetry" (1938) and "The Metaphysics of Literature" (1940). Michael Marra, one of the West’s foremost authorities on modern Japanese aesthetics, prefaces his translations with an important essay that gives an account of the current state of Kuki studies in English and presents an intriguing and original interpretation of Kuki’s writings. Marra argues that there is an unresolved tension in Kuki’s thought between a desire to overcome the rigid schemes of metaphysics, garnered from his knowledge of French and German philosophy, on the one hand, and a constant hesitation to let those schemes go, which is expressed in his verse.

Download or read book The Legend of Gold and Other Stories written by Jun Ishikawa and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 1998-10-01 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The four stories and novella translated in this volume represent the best short fiction by Ishikawa Jun (1899-1987), one of the most important modernist writers to appear on the Japanese literary stage during the years before and after World War II. Throughout his career, Ishikawa resisted the tide of popular opinion to address issues of political and artistic significance and thereby paved the way for a generation of Japanese internationalists and experimentalists, including Abe Kobo and Oe Kenzaburo. Highly acclaimed and respected in Japan, Ishikawa remains little known in the West-in part because of the tendency of Western critics and readers of Japanese literature to focus on writers concerned with aesthetic issues. Combining a strong interest in politics with a brilliant use of modernist techniques, Ishikawa's work defies easy categorization. Banned in 1938, "Mars' Song" has been called the finest example of anti-war fiction written during Japan's march to war in China and the Pacific. In it Ishikawa denounces the chorus of jingoism that swept Japan, and via a metafictional tale within a tale, he warns against the suicidal destruction to which complicity in warmongering will lead. The allegorical "Moon Gems," written in the spring of 1945, further explores the tenuous position of the writer moving against the current in a country not only still at war but very near defeat. In "The Legend of Gold" and "The Jesus of the Ruins," both from 1946, Japan has been reduced to a charred wasteland yet Ishikawa envisions destruction as fertile ground for rebirth and resurrection. Finally, the semi-surrealistic novella The Raptor plumbs the meanings and possibilities of peace in the post-Occupation era. William Tyler's eminently readable translations are faithfully expressive of stylistic and tonal nuances in the original works. In a perceptive introduction and the critical essays that follow, Tyler emphasizes Ishikawa's importance as an anti-establishment--even "resistance"--writer and argues that the writer's political iconoclasm goes hand-in-hand with the modanizumu of his literary experimentation. The Legend of Gold will be of tremendous importance in enlarging a Western understanding of the development of the writer's role as social critic and the evolution of the modernist movement in postwar Japan.

Download or read book The A to Z of Modern Japanese Literature and Theater written by Scott J. Miller and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 2010-04-01 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the Meiji Restoration in 1868, Japan opened its doors to the West and underwent remarkable changes as it sought to become a modern nation. Accompanying the political changes that Western trade ushered in were widespread social and cultural changes. Newspapers, novels, poems, and plays from the Western world were soon adapted and translated into Japanese. The combination of the rich storytelling tradition of Japan with the realism and modernism of the West produced some of the greatest literature of the modern age. The A to Z of Modern Japanese Literature and Theater presents a broad perspective on the development and history of literature-narrative, poetry, and drama-in modern Japan. This book offers a chronology, introduction, bibliography, and over 400 cross-referenced dictionary entries on authors, literary and historical developments, trends, genres, and concepts that played a central role in the evolution of modern Japanese literature.

Download or read book Tokyo Year Zero written by David Peace and published by Faber & Faber. This book was released on 2008-09-04 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Brilliant.' New York Times 'Remarkable.' Irish Times August 1946. One year on from surrender and Tokyo lies broken and bleeding at the feet of its American victors. Against this extraordinary historical backdrop, Tokyo Year Zero opens with the discovery of the bodies of two young women in Shiba Park. Against his wishes, Detective Minami is assigned to the case; as he gets drawn ever deeper into these complex and horrific murders, he realises that his own past and secrets are indelibly linked to those of the dead women and their killer. 'A feat of prodigious and intense imagination.' The Times 'A chilling tale of murder, corruption and post-war devastation.' Observer Books of the Year 'Part historical stunner, part Kurosawa crime film, an original all the way.' James Ellroy

Download or read book Tales of a Chinese Grandmother written by Frances Carpenter and published by Tuttle Publishing. This book was released on 2011-12-20 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This illustrated multicultural children's book presents classic Chinese fairy tales and other folk stories--providing a delightful look into a rich literary culture. Chinese folklore tradition is as colorful and captivating as any in the world, but the stories themselves still are not as well-known to Western readers as those from The Brothers Grimm, Mother Goose, or Hans Christian Andersen. Tales of a Chinese Grandmother, written by Frances Carpenter, presents a collection of 30 authentic Chinese folktales. These classic stories represent the best of the Chinese folk tradition and are told here by the character Lao Lao, the beloved grandmother of the nineteenth-century Ling household. A sampling from a long and proud tradition, these Chinese folktales are sure to delight adults as well as children of all ages. Chinese children's stories include: How Pan Ku Made the World The God that Lived in the Kitchen The Daughter of the Dragon King The Grateful Fox Fairy The King of the Monkeys The Wonderful Pear Tree Ko-Ai's Lost Shoe Heng O, the Moon Lady The Old Old One's Birthday

Download or read book Kojiki written by and published by Tuttle Publishing. This book was released on 2012-06-19 with total page 598 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written by imperial command in the eighth century, The Kojiki: Records of Ancient Matters is Japan's classic of classics, the oldest connected literary work and the fundamental scripture of Shinto. A more factual history called the Nihongi or Nihon Shoki (Chronicles of Japan) was completed in A.D. 720, but The Kojiki remains the better known, perhaps because of its special concern with the legends of the gods, with the divine descent of the imperial family, and with native Shinto. Both works have immense value as records of the development of Japan into a unified state with a well-defined character. Indeed, even the mythological aspects were accepted as fact throughout most of subsequent Japanese history--until the defeat and disillusionment of the nation in 1945. This classic text is a key to the historical roots of the Japanese people--their early life and the development of their character and institutions--as well as a lively mixture of legend and history, genealogy, and poetry. It stands as one of the greatest monuments of Japanese literature because it preserves more faithfully than any other book the mythology, manners, language and traditions of Japan. It provides, furthermore, a vivid account of a nation in the making. The work opens "when chaos had begun to condense, but force and form were not yet manifest, and there was nought named, nought done &ellipse;" It recounts the mythological creation of Japan by the divine brother and sister Izanami and Izanagi; tales of the Sun Goddess and other deities; the divine origin of Jimmu the first emperor; and the histories of subsequent reigns. Epic material is complemented by a fresh bucolic vein expressed in songs and poetry. This famous translation by the British scholar Basil Hall Chamberlain is enhanced by notes on the text and an extensive introduction discussing early Japanese society, as well as The Kojiki and its background. Important for its wealth of information, The Kojiki is indispensable to anyone interested in things Japanese.

Download or read book Modern Japanese Literature in Western Translations written by and published by . This book was released on 1972 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Nagai Kaf s Occidentalism written by Rachael Hutchinson and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2011-11-01 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nagai Kafū (1879–1959) spent more time abroad than any other writer of his generation, firing the Japanese imagination with his visions of America and France. Applying the theoretical framework of Occidentalism to Japanese literature, Rachael Hutchinson explores Kafū's construction of the Western Other, an integral part of his critique of Meiji civilization. Through contrast with the Western Other, Kafū was able to solve the dilemma that so plagued Japanese intellectuals—how to modernize and yet retain an authentic Japanese identity in the modern world. Kafū's flexible positioning of imagined spaces like the "West" and the "Orient" ultimately led him to a definition of the Japanese Self. Hutchinson analyzes the wide range of Kafū's work, particularly those novels and stories reflecting Kafū's time in the West and the return to Japan, most unknown to Western readers and a number unavailable in English, along with his better-known depictions of Edo's demimonde. Kafū's place in Japan's intellectual history and his influence on other writers are also discussed.

Download or read book Autumn Wind Other Stories written by Lane Dunlop and published by Tuttle Publishing. This book was released on 2011-12-27 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Lane Dunlop's translations read elegantly, and his selection of modern Japanese Stories is both fresh and persuasive." —Donald Keene, Japanese scholar, historian, teacher, writer and translator of Japanese literature. The fourteen distinct voices of this collection tell fourteen very different stories spanning sixty years of twentieth-century Japanese literature. They include a nostalgic portrait of an aristocratic Meiji family in Kafu Nagai's "The Fox," a surprisingly cheerful celebration of postwar chaos in Sakaguchi Ango's "One Woman and the War," a chilly assessment of the modern society in Watanabe Junichi's "Invitation to Suicide," and much more. The writers also represent a wide spectrum, from renowned figure of Yasunari Kawabata, winner of the Noble Prize for Literature in 1968, to authors whose works have never before been translated into English. Westerners familiar only with stereotypical images of bowing geisha and dark-suited businessmen will be surprised by the cast of characters translator Lane Dunlop introduces in this anthology. Lovers of fiction and student of Japan are certain to find these stories absorbing, engaging and instructive.

Download or read book The Japanese City written by Pradyumna P. Karan and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2014-10-17 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Japan is one of the most crowded countries on earth, with three-fourths of its population now living in cities. Tokyo is easily the most populous city on the planet. And yet, though closely packed, its citizens dwell together in relative peace. In America, inner-city violence—often attributed in part to overcrowding—is frequently emphasized as one of the great social problems of the day. What might we learn from Japan's situation that could be applied to our own as we approach the twenty-first century? In this collection an interdisciplinary group of international scholars seek to understand and explain the process and characteristics shaping the modern Japanese city. With frequent comparisons to the American city, they consider such topics as urban landscapes, the quality of life in the suburbs, spatial mixing of social classes in the city, land use planning and control, environmental pollution, and images of the city in Japanese literature. The only book on the subject, The Japanese City surveys the important literature and highlights the current issues in urban studies. The numerous photographs, maps, tables, and graphs, combined with the high quality of the contributions, offer a comprehensive look at the contemporary Japanese city. Contributors: William Burton, David L. Callies, Roman Cybriwsky, Kuniko Fujita, Theodore J. Gilman, Richard Child Hill, P.P. Karan, Robert Kidder, Cotton Mather, and Kohei Okamoto.

Download or read book Modanizumu written by William J. Tyler and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2008-01-04 with total page 625 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Remarkably little has been written on the subject of modernism in Japanese fiction. Until now there has been neither a comprehensive survey of Japanese modernist fiction nor an anthology of translations to provide a systematic introduction. Only recently have the terms "modernism" and "modernist" become part of the standard discourse in English on modern Japanese literature and doubts concerning their authenticity vis-a-vis Western European modernism remain. This anomaly is especially ironic in view of the decidedly modan prose crafted by such well-known Japanese writers as Kawabata Yasunari, Nagai Kafu, and Tanizaki Jun’ichiro­. By contrast, scholars in the visual and fine arts, architecture, and poetry readily embraced modanizumu as a key concept for describing and analyzing Japanese culture in the 1920s and 1930s. This volume addresses this discrepancy by presenting in translation for the first time a collection of twenty-five stories and novellas representative of Japanese authors who worked in the modernist idiom from 1913 to 1938. Its prefatory materials provide a systematic overview of the literary movement’s salient features—anti-naturalism, cosmopolitanism, the concept of the double self, and actionism—and describe how modanizumu evolved from its early "jagged edges" into a sophisticated yet popular expression of Japanese urban life in the first half of the twentieth century. The modanist style, characterized by youthful exuberance, a tongue-in-cheek tone, and narrative techniques like superimposition, is amply illustrated. Modanizumu introduces faces altogether new or relatively unknown: Abe Tomoji, Kajii Motojiro, Murayama Kaita, Osaki Midori, Tachibana Sotoo, Takeda Rintaro, Tani Joji, Yoshiyuki Eisuke, and Yumeno Kyusaku. It also revisits such luminaries as Kawabata, Tanizaki, and the detective novelist Edogawa Ranpo. Key works that it culls from the modernist repertoire include Funahashi Seiichi’s Diving, Hagiwara Sakutaro’s "Town of Cats," Ito Sei’s Streets of Fiendish Ghosts, and Kawabata’s film scenario Page of Madness. This volume moves beyond conventional views to place this important movement in Japanese fiction within a global context: an indigenous expression born of the fission of local creativity and the fusion of cross-cultural interaction.

Download or read book Ten Foot Square Hut and Tales of the Heike written by and published by Tuttle Publishing. This book was released on 2011-08-30 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Readers of medieval Japanese literature have long been captivated by its romance and philosophy. In this volume, two acclaimed thirteenth-century classics, The Ten Foot Square Hut and Tales of the Heike, are presented in translation. The Ten Foot Square Hut (the Hojoki) takes its title from a four and half mat sized Tearoom, the size of the hut in which the hero of the story, Chomei, lives. It offers the memorable reflections of this sensitive aristocrat who has retired from a world filled with violent contrasts and cataclysms to find refuge in nature and Buddhist philosophy. Though this narrative was written 700 years ago, its message continues to have an astonishing timeliness. Tales of the Heike (selections from the Heike Monogatari) deals with the same period but from a different point of view, supplying the background of Chomei's meditations. It is a collection of episodic stories, written in poetical prose, related to the rise and fall of the Taira clan in twelfth-century Kyoto, one of the great turning points in Japanese history. The translations, by the late Professor A. L. Sandler, are complemented by an informed Introduction on the background to these masterpieces of Japanese literature.

Download or read book Modern Japanese Short Stories written by Ivan Morris and published by Tuttle Publishing. This book was released on 2019-07-16 with total page 529 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Modern Japanese Short Stories is a remarkable collection of Japanese stories from the pioneers of contemporary Japanese literature. This volume's twenty-five stories by as many authors display a wide range of style and subject matter--offering a revealing picture of modern Japanese culture and society. The stories in this anthology include: "Tattoo" by Junichiro Tanizaki--a large spider tattooed on the back of a young woman results in unexpected changes "Autumn Mountain" by Ryunosuke Akutagawa--vivid memories of a beautiful painting leads a man to wonder if the it ever actually existed "The Priest and His Love" by Yukio Mishima--a Buddhist priest finds his path to enlightenment challenged after falling in love "The Moon on the Water" by Nobel Prize winner Yasunari Kawabata--a young woman who cared for her ailing first husband through most of their marriage regrets remarrying after his death Featuring a new foreword by Japanese literary scholar Seiji Lippit and striking woodcut illustrations by Masakazu Kuwata, the stories are translated by the editor, Ivan Morris, and Edward Seidensticker, George Saito, and Geoffery Sargent. This collection of short stories shows why Japanese literature is so highly valued today--it teaches not only about Japan, but about the human condition and the possibilities of art.