About
Billington Library currently owns more than one hundred thirty-five titles relating to Japanese literature. These include poetry, drama, short stories, novels, and critical and biographical studies of individual works and authors, as well as studies of literary eras and genres. Listed below is an annotated bibliography of some representative novels and short stories of the twentieth century.
An asterisk (*) indicates that the college library owns other titles by the author.
Novels
The Woman in the Dunes - Abe, Kobo *
Call Number: PL 845 B4 S813
This is a surrealistic novel in which a high school teacher on holiday to collect insects is imprisoned by a village in the home of a widow. The two of them are forced to shovel back the sand dunes to save the village from obliteration.
Citadel in Spring: A Novel of Youth Spent at War - Agawa, Hiroyuki
Call Number: PL 845 G3 H313
A young Japanese naval recruit becomes desensitized to war's brutality and later views the destruction of his home town, Hiroshima, by the atomic bomb.
Foreign Studies - Endo, Shusaku *
Call Number: PL 849 N4 S2413
These are three long short stories about the cultural dislocation of Japanese foreign students in Europe.
Silence - Endo, Shusaku *
Call Number: PL 849 N4 C413
In the sixteenth century, when the government decides that Christianity is a threat to the Japanese way of life, Jesuits in Japan must denounce their beliefs or see their congregations tortured and martyred in horrendous ways.
Snow Country - Kawabata, Yasunari *
Call Number: PL 832 A9 Y813
In this novel by Japan�s first Nobel Laureate in literature, a simple country geisha has an affair with a wealthy dilettante who is as remote and cold as the weather in the mountains. She honestly loves him although she knows it will end in tragedy for her.
The Master of Go - Kawabata, Yasunari *
Call Number: PL 832 A9 M413
Based on actual events, this is the story of a championship "Go" match in which a young professional player challenges the grand old master. Kawabata manages to describe not only an exciting sporting event, but also to illuminate the passing of the old order of Japan.
Thousand Cranes - Kawabata, Yasunari *
Call Number: PL 832 A9 Y813
A young man is caught up in a feud between two of his deceased father's mistresses both of whom are trying to arrange a marriage for him. The novel is set against the ritual tea ceremony. The author was Japan�s first Nobel Laureate in literature.
The Temple of Dawn: The Sea of Fertility Book 3 - Mishima, Yukio
Call Number: PL 833 I7 A727
From World War II through the early post-war era, a middle-age man alternates between his obsessive pursuit of a beautiful woman and his search for Buddhist enlightenment.
Runaway Horses: The Sea of Fertility Book 2 - Mishima, Yukio *
Call Number: PL 833 I7 H6613
In Book 2, the hero is involved in a conspiracy to purify Japan of outside influence, a foreshadowing of the fanaticism of Japan during World War II.
Spring Snow: The Sea of Fertility Book 1 - Mishima, Yukio *
Call Number: PL 833 I7 H3613
Book one of the author's famed tetralogy describes the coming of age in 1912 of an ambitious young man whose love for a beautiful woman is thwarted.
The Decay of the Angel: The Sea of Fertility Book 4 - Mishima, Yukio *
Call Number: PL 833 I7 T4613
This novel unites the themes of the previous three books: the decline of the courtly traditions, the idealistic ways of the Samurai, and Buddhism.
Crossfire - Miyabe, Miyuki
Call Number: PL 856 I856 K8713
The heroine of this novel is a young Japanese woman with the power of pyrokenesis - the ability to set objects and people on fire through mere concentration. She becomes a one-woman vigilante squad throughout Tokyo punishing wrong-doers and an occasional innocent bystander by burning them to ashes. Two sympathetic police officers have the task of finding and stopping her. The novel explores the dark side of Japan and the fear of criminal behavior on the streets.
Shadow Family - Miyabe, Miyuki
Call Number: PL 857 I856 S52
Police try to discover a motive for the brutal murder of a businessman who had become part of an imaginary family on the internet, a family to whom he was more attentive than his own.
All She Was Worth - Miyabe, Miyuki *
Call Number: PL 856 E856 K3713
Identity theft, consumerism gone mad and a missing fianc�e are all part of the new Japan that a Tokyo police inspector investigates while on disability leave.
After Dark - Murakami, Haruki
Call Number: McNaughton
In this short novel, a young woman wanders the streets of Tokyo at night, while her beautiful older sister lies sleeping in a seemingly endless sleep. As the narrator cuts back and forth between the two women, questions about identity and the nature of relationships are gently explored by Japan's master surreal storyteller.
A Wild Sheep Chase - Murakami, Haruki *
Call Number: PL 856 U673 H5713
In this is the tale about a surrealistic hunt for an evil sheep, the narrator discovers the meaning of his own life and foils a plot to control the world.
After the Earthquake: Stories - Murakami, Haruki *
Call Number: PL 856 U673 K36
This collection of short stories describes individuals in various states of malaise after the Kobe earthquake. Although the earthquake doesn't occur in any of the stories, its aftershocks affect various protagonists who have ties to people in Kobe.
Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World - Murakami, Haruki *
Call Number: PL 856 U673 S4513
A computer expert finds himself involved in a cyber-experiment that may cost him his life in this science fiction look at a potential future in Japan.
Kafka on the Shore - Murakami, Haruki *
Call Number: PL 856.U673 U48
Fifteen-year-old Kafka Tamura is running away from home to avoid an Oedipal prophecy. His story intersects with that of an elderly illiterate man who can speak to cats. Typical of the author's works, the woven fabric of several stories converges to create a spiritual mystery replete with androgynous librarians, soulful truck drivers and wise cats.
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle - Murakami, Haruki *
Call Number: PL 856 U673 N4513
This is a post-modern narrative about one man's journey through contemporary Japan, searching for his wife, his missing cat, and the meaning of life. This challenging book, while examining life in the present, also delves into Japan's guilt for atrocities committed in China and Manchuria during World War II.
Underground - Murakami, Haruki *
Call Number: BP 605 O88 M8613
The author interviewed survivors and perpetrators of the sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subway. The interviews present a portrait of Japanese society in crisis.
Kokoro - Natsume, Soseki *
Call Number: PL 812 A8 K613
This is a story about friendship between two men of different generations in turn-of-the-century Japan and about the consequences of overwhelming loneliness.
The Bomb - Oda, Makoto
Call Number: PL 858 D3 H5713
The author examines the impact of the first atomic bombs on people from New Mexico, residents of Japan, Indian tribes near the test sites, and Koreans living in Japan. This book is a study of prejudice and the consequences of war.
A Quiet Life - Oe, Kenzaburo *
Call Number: PL 858 E14 S4913
The daughter of a famous novelist cares for her brain damaged older brother and a younger brother preparing for his college entrance examination while her parents are in California. The author won a Nobel Prize for Literature.
Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids - Oe, Kenzaburo *
Call Number: PL 858 E14 M413
A group of delinquent boys are sent to a remote village in the waning days of World War II. Abandoned by the villagers, they establish a reasonable society that is tragically destroyed when the brutal peasants return.
Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness - Oe, Kenzaburo *
Call Number: PL 858 E14 T4
Four novellas about varying forms of madness: the madness of war, of a man who imagines he is dying of liver cancer, of the father of a brain-damaged son, of a composer whose baby has died. These are challenging stories by a Nobel Prize winning author.
The Housekeeper and the Professor - Ogawa, Yoko
Call Number: PL858.G37 H3513
A brilliant math professor who suffered a head injury years before has only eighty minutes worth of memory before it disappears although he remembers everything that occurred before the accident. His housekeeper and her son develop a touching and complicated relationship as he teaches both of them about the mathematics he loves.
Sayonara, Gangsters - Takahashi, Gen'ichir�o
Call Number: PL 862 A4184 S2913
This is a post-modern novel in which people must give each other names because if they name themselves, the names will kill them. The hero is a poetry teacher whose girlfriend is a former gangster. While the novel is exhilarating to read, it is extremely difficult to describe or explain the meaning.
Diary of a Mad Old Man - Tanizaki, Jun'ichiro *
Call Number: PL 8393 A7 F83
A dying old man thinks of sex and death as he writes a journal of his last days.
The Makioka Sisters - Tanizaki, Jun'ichiro *
Call Number: PL 839 A7 S3713
Four sisters of an impoverished aristocratic family struggle to survive and preserve their outdated traditions in the face of modernity. Their main goal is to marry off the demur third sister so that the wilder youngest sister can be married before a scandal occurs.
The Bridegroom was a Dog - Tawada, Yoko
Call Number: PL 839 A82 B75
These three short stories are fanciful explorations of the bizarre situations in which women find themselves. The stories have strong sexual subtexts.
Shanghai - Yokomitsu, Riichi
Call Number: PL 842 O5 S513
This novel looks at the lives of a group of Japanese expatriates living in Shanghai during the 1920's. All of them are trying to make a living while China, lacking a cohesive government, is a pressure cooker about to explode.
Kitchen - Yoshimoto, Banana
Call Number: PL 865 O7138 K5813
A young woman, whose grandmother has died, is taken in by a classmate whose mother is actually a male transvestite. Unable to reconnect to life, the woman finds her greatest pleasure in cooking.
On Parole - Yoshimura, Akira *
Call Number: PL 865 O72 K3713
A 50-year-old man who has served a long sentence for murdering his wife and her lover attempts to put his life back together when he is released.
One Man's Justice - Yoshimura, Akira *
Call Number: PL 865 O72 T6413
This is the story of a former officer in the Japanese Army who goes into hiding after World War II when the Army of Occupation is searching for war criminals. The novel is a meditation on what is right and what is wrong during a war and who is a war criminal and who is a patriot - particularly interesting as it is related from the Japanese point of view.
Novels by Japanese Authors Who Live Outside Japan
Summer of the Big Bachi - Hirahara, Naomi *
Call Number: PS 3608 I76 S86
What happened fifty years ago during the destruction of Hiroshima during World War II becomes crucial to a Japanese family. The key to the knowledge is held by an aging Japanese American gardener in Los Angeles. Despite his wish to remain uninvolved, he finds himself the reluctant detective as old scores are paid back and old wrongs righted.
The Gasa-Gasa Girl - Hirahara, Naomi *
Call Number: PS 3608 I76 G37
An elderly Japanese-American gardener from California is called to New York to assist his daughter and son-in-law in the restoration of a traditional garden. Then the businessman who hired them is murdered.
The Snakeskin Shamisen - Hirahara, Naomi *
Call Number: PS 3608 I76 S63
The murder of a gambler, who has just won an enormous jackpot, at the gambler's own celebratory party leads elderly gardener Mas Arai into the investigation which goes back to a crime committed after World War II. As usual, the motives are tangled and past evil is a powerful motivator for current revenge.
An Artist of the Floating World - Ishiguro, Kazuo *
Call Number: PR 6059 S5 A89
A popular Japanese artist sides with the militarists during World War II.
When the Emperor Was Divine - Otsuka, Julie (Japanese American)
Call Number: PS 3615 T88 W48
This novel describes the life of a Japanese-American family of four who are uprooted from their California home and send to a relocation camp during World War II.
All Over Creation - Ozeki, Ruth L. *
Call Number: PS 3565 Z45 A55
Returning to Idaho to care for her aged parents, the troubled daughter of a potato farmer and his Japanese wife, finds her family and neighbors caught up in a protest against genetically altered potatoes spearheaded by a group of itinerate protesters intent on making her father their guru and opposed by the slimy PR representative of a big chemical corporation - a man who had seduced her when he was her junior high school teacher 25 years earlier.
My Year of Meats - Ozeki, Ruth L. *
Call Number: PS 3565 Z45 M99
A documentary filmmaker takes a job filming typical American families eating meat to promote the eating of beef in Japan.
Subject Guide |
Andrea KempfContact Info:
Johnson County Community College
Billington Library 229
913-469-3286
fax 913-469-4417
Send Email
Subjects:
Humanities, Literature, Art, Music, Cooking, International Fiction
Johnson County Community College
Billington Library 229
913-469-3286
fax 913-469-4417
Send Email
Subjects:
Humanities, Literature, Art, Music, Cooking, International Fiction
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