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books tagged “Japanese literature” (japanese literature)
books tagged “Japanese literature”
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After the Quakeby Haruki Murakami, Jay RubinISBN 0375713271 (0-375-71327-1)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'After the Quake'Book summary:Haruki Murakami, a writer both mystical and hip, is the West's favorite Japanese novelist. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Murakami lived abroad until 1995. That year, two disasters struck Japan: the lethal earthquake in Kobe and the deadly poison gas attacks in the Tokyo subway. Spurred by these tragic events, Murakami returned home. The stories in After the Quake are set in the months that fell between the earthquake and the subway attack, presenting a world marked by despair, hope, and a kind of human instinct for transformation. A teenage girl and a middle-aged man share a hobby of making beach bonfires; a businesswoman travels to Thailand and, quietly, confronts her own death; three friends act out a modern-day Tokyo version of Jules and Jim. There's a surreal element running through the collection in the form of unlikely frogs turning up in unlikely places. News of the earthquake hums throughout. The book opens with the dull buzz of disaster-watching: "Five straight days she spent in front of the television, staring at the crumbled banks and hospitals, whole blocks of stores in flames, severed rail lines and expressways." With language that's never self-consciously lyrical or show-offy, Murakami constructs stories as tight and beautiful as poems. There's no turning back for his people; there's only before and after the quake. --Claire Dederer [via]
Anthology of Japanese Literature from the Earliest Era to the Mid-Nineteenth Centuryby Donald KeeneISBN 0802150586 (0-8021-5058-6)
Softcover, Grove Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Anthology of Japanese Literature from the Earliest Era to the Mid-Nineteenth Century'More editions of Anthology of Japanese Literature from the Earliest Era to the Mid-Nineteenth Century:
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Confessions of a Maskby Yukio MishimaISBN 081120118X (0-8112-0118-X)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Confessions of a Mask'Book summary:One of the classics of modern Japanese fiction.
Confessions of a Mask is the story of an adolescent who must learn to live with the painful fact that he is unlike other young men. Mishima's protagonist discovers that he is becoming a homosexual in polite, post-war Japan. To survive, he must live behind a mask of propriety.
Christopher Isherwood comments"One might say, 'Here is a Japanese Gide,'....But no, Mishima is himselfa very Japanese Mishima; lucid in the midst of emotional confusion, funny in the midst of despair, quite without pomposity, sentimentality or self-pity. His book, like no other, has made me understand a little of how it feels to be Japanese. I think it is greatly superior, as art and as a human document to his deservedly praised novel, The Sound of Waves." [via]More editions of Confessions of a Mask:
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Cronica Del Pajaro/bird Chroniclesby Haruki Murakami, Lourdes Porta Fuentes, Jun'ichi MatsuuraISBN 8483101718 (84-8310-171-8)
Softcover, Tusquets Editor
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Cronica Del Pajaro/bird Chronicles'Book summary:Tooru Okada, un joven japonés que acaba de dejar voluntariamente su trabajo en un bufete de abogados, recibe un buen día la llamada anónima de una mujer. A partir de ese momento la vida de Tooru, que había transcurrido por los cauces de la más absoluta normalidad, empieza a sufrir una extraña transformación. A su alrededor van apareciendo personajes cada vez más extraños, y la realidad, o lo real, va degradándose hasta convertirse en algo fantasmagórico.
The masterpiece of Japanese cult writer Haruki Murakami, the story of Tooru Okada, a young lawyer whose life begins to undergo a bizarre transformation. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle presents a collection of characters as surprising as they are real. [via]More editions of Cronica Del Pajaro/bird Chronicles:
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Dance, Dance, Danceby Alfred Birnbaum, Haruki MurakamiISBN 0679753796 (0-679-75379-6)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Dance, Dance, Dance'Book summary:In this propulsive novel by the author of Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World and The Elephant Vanishes, one of the most idiosyncratically brilliant writers at work in any language fuses science fiction, the hard-boiled thriller, and white-hot satire into a new element of the literary periodic table.
As he searches for a mysteriously vanished girlfriend, Haruki Murakami's protagonist plunges into a wind tunnel of sexual violence and metaphysical dread in which he collides with call girls; plays chaperone to a lovely teenaged psychic; and receives cryptic instructions from a shabby but oracular Sheep Man. Dance Dance Dance is a tense, poignant, and often hilarious ride through the cultural Cuisinart that is contemporary Japan, a place where everything that is not up for sale is up for grabs. [via]More editions of Dance, Dance, Dance:
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Dance, Dance, Danceby Haruki Murakami, Alfred BirnbaumISBN 4770016832 (4-7700-1683-2)
Hardcover, Kodansha Amer Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Dance, Dance, Dance'Book summary:He burst upon the international scene with the wildly acclaimed A Wild Sheep Chase. He quickly came to represent the quirky voice of a new generation of Japanese writers. Now Haruki Murakami gives us his wittiest, boldest, most daring work to date. Dance dance dance continues the extraordinary adventure of an ordinary man. At thirty something, Murakami's nameless hero lives in a hi-tech, high-rise world where old virtues die fast and success is all that matters. He has shared in the glittering city's spoils, and while he has not sold his soul, he knows that something is lacking in his life. Now, in dreams, a mysterious woman weeps softly - for him. Yet, even as he tries to understand why, the voice that beckons is not hers. And still he dreams. Bizarre dreams that propel him down byways of his life in search of ... ? His is a strange odyssey: en route, a thirteen-year-old girl, distressingly beautiful and clairvoyant, is his constant companion; a classmate, now oozing charm on TV soaps, grapples with murder; a lady of the night becomes his guardian angel; and an eccentric Sheep Man materializes to counsel and cajole. What's a fellow to do? Dance. You gotta dance as long as the music plays. And dance is what our hero does ... in the most unexpected ways! [via]
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The Elephant Vanishesby Haruki MurakamiISBN 0679750533 (0-679-75053-3)
Softcover, Vintage Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Elephant Vanishes'Book summary:With the same deadpan mania and genius for dislocation that he brought to his internationally acclaimed novels A Wild Sheep Chase and Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Haruki Murakami makes this collection of stories a determined assault on the normal. A man sees his favorite elephant vanish into thin air; a newlywed couple suffers attacks of hunger that drive them to hold up a McDonald's in the middle of the night; and a young woman discovers that she has become irresistible to a little green monster who burrows up through her backyard.
By turns haunting and hilarious, The Elephant Vanishes is further proof of Murakami's ability to cross the border between separate realities -- and to come back bearing treasure.
From the Trade Paperback edition. [via] 
Forbidden Colorsby Yukio MishimaISBN 0375705163 (0-375-70516-3)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Forbidden Colors'Book summary:Written when Mishima was only twentysix, "Forbidden Colors" is a depiction of a male homosexual relationship, in which a rich older man buys the love of a young man who is stunningly handsome but who lacks the ability to love. As in "Mann's Death in Venice", the older man's longing for the beauty of youth is associated with aestheticism and death. [via]
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The Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the Worldby Haruki Murakami, Alfred BirnbaumISBN 0679743464 (0-679-74346-4)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World'Book summary:By the author of "A Wild Sheep Chase", which won the Noma Literary Award for New Writers, this novel combines science-fiction, satire and a warning of the dangerous powers of corporations. [via]
More editions of The Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World:
- The Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World: ISBN 0241131448 (0-241-13144-8)
Hardcover, Hamish Hamilton - The Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World: ISBN 4770015445 (4-7700-1544-5)
Hardcover, Kodansha International - The Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World: ISBN 0679743464 (0-679-74346-4)
Softcover, Random House Inc
- The Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World: ISBN 0241131448 (0-241-13144-8)
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Kafka On The Shoreby Haruki Murakami, J. Philip Gabriel, Philip GabrielISBN 1400079276 (1-4000-7927-6)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Kafka on the Shore'Book summary:With Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami gives us a novel every bit as ambitious and expansive as The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, which has been acclaimed both here and around the world for its uncommon ambition and achievement, and whose still-growing popularity suggests that it will be read and admired for decades to come.
This magnificent new novel has a similarly extraordinary scope and the same capacity to amaze, entertain, and bewitch the reader. A tour de force of metaphysical reality, it is powered by two remarkable characters: a teenage boy, Kafka Tamura, who runs away from home either to escape a gruesome oedipal prophecy or to search for his long-missing mother and sister; and an aging simpleton called Nakata, who never recovered from a wartime affliction and now is drawn toward Kafka for reasons that, like the most basic activities of daily life, he cannot fathom. Their odyssey, as mysterious to them as it is to us, is enriched throughout by vivid accomplices and mesmerizing events. Cats and people carry on conversations, a ghostlike pimp employs a Hegel-quoting prostitute, a forest harbors soldiers apparently unaged since World War II, and rainstorms of fish (and worse) fall from the sky. There is a brutal murder, with the identity of both victim and perpetrator a riddleyet this, along with everything else, is eventually answered, just as the entwined destinies of Kafka and Nakata are gradually revealed, with one escaping his fate entirely and the other given a fresh start on his own.
Extravagant in its accomplishment, Kafka on the Shore displays one of the worlds truly great storytellers at the height of his powers. [via] -
Kitchenby Banana Yoshimoto, Megan BackusISBN 0671880187 (0-671-88018-7)
Softcover, Pocket Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Kitchen'Book summary:Two stories, "Kitchen" and "Moonlight Shadow," told through the eyes of a pair of contemporary young Japanese women, deal with the themes of mothers, love, transsexuality, kitchens, and tragedy. Reprint. NYT. [via]
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Kitchenby Alan Ayckbourn, Megan BackusISBN 0802142443 (0-8021-4244-3)
Softcover, Grove Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Kitchen'Book summary:With the publication of Kitchen, the dazzling English-language debut that is still her best-loved book, the literary world realized that 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. [via]
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Kokoroby Natsume SosekiISBN 1576465853 (1-57646-585-3)
Softcover, Quiet Vision Pub
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Kokoro'Book summary:It was during the Meiji era, which lasted from 1868 to 1912, that Japan emerged as a modern nation; and it was towards the latter part of this period that the modern Japanese novel reached its maturity, and true masters of what was essentially a western literary form began to appear.Of these novelists, Natsume Soseki was perhaps the most profound and the most versatile.
Soseki was born in Tokyo in 1867, when the city was still known as Yedo. He was educated at the Imperial University, where he studied English literature. In 1896, he joined the staff of the Fifth National College in Kumamoto, and in 1900, he was sent to England as a government scholar. He returned to Japan in 1903 as lecturer in English literature at the Imperial University. He was dissatisfied with academic life, and in 1907 decided to devote all his time to writing novels and essays. [via]
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Kokoroby Edwin McClellan, Soseki NatsumeISBN 0486451399 (0-486-45139-9)
Softcover, Dover Pubns
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Kokoroby Soseki NatsumeISBN 0720600405 (0-7206-0040-5)
Hardcover, Peter Owen
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The Makioka Sistersby Edward Seidensticker, Jun Ichiro TanizakiISBN 0679761640 (0-679-76164-0)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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The Master of Goby Yasunari Kawabata, Edward SeidenstickerISBN 0679761063 (0-679-76106-3)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Master of Go'Book summary:Go is a game of strategy in which two players attempt to surround each others black or white stones. Simple in its fundamentals, infinitely complex in its execution, Go is an essential expression of the Japanese spirit. And in his fictional chronicle of a match played between a revered and heretofore invincible Master and a younger, more modern challenger, Yasunari Kawabata captured the moment in which the immutable traditions of imperial Japan met the onslaught of the twentieth century.
The competition between the Master of Go and his opponent, Otaké, is waged over several months and layered in ceremony. But beneath the games decorum lie tensions that consume not only the players themselves but their families and retainerstensions that turn this particular contest into a duel that can only end in death. Luminous in its detail, both suspenseful and serene, The Master of Go is an elegy for an entire society, written with the poetic economy and psychological acumen that brought Kawabata the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Translated from the Japanese by Edward G. Seidensticker [via]More editions of The Master of Go:
- The Master of Go: ISBN 0399505288 (0-399-50528-8)
Softcover, Perigee - The Master of Go: ISBN 0394475410 (0-394-47541-0)
Hardcover, Random House Inc - The Master of Go: ISBN 0436231220 (0-436-23122-0)
Hardcover, Secker and Warburg - The Master of Go: ISBN 0679761063 (0-679-76106-3)
Softcover, Random House Inc
- The Master of Go: ISBN 0399505288 (0-399-50528-8)
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Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketchesby Basho MatsuoISBN 0140441859 (0-14-044185-9)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches'Book summary:In his perfectly crafted haiku poems, Basho described the natural world with great simplicity and delicacy of feeling. When he composed "The Narrow Road to the Deep North" he was a serious student of Zen Buddhism setting off on a series of travels designed to strip away the trappings of the material world and bring spiritual enlightenment. He wrote of the seasons changing, of the smell of the rain, the brightness of the moon and the beauty of the waterfall, through which he sensed the mysteries of the universe. These travel writings not only chronicle Basho's perilous journeys through Japan, but they also capture his vision of eternity in the transient world around him. [via]
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Noruwei No Moriby Haruki MurakamiISBN 4062035162 (4-06-203516-2)
Hardcover, Kodansha
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Noruwei No Mori'Book summary:Noruwei no mori, Vol. 2 (Japanese Edition) by Murakami, Haruki [via]
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Norwegian Woodby Haruki MurakamiISBN 1860468004 (1-86046-800-4)
Softcover, Random House
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Norwegian Wood'Book summary:In 1987, when Norwegian Wood was first published in Japan, it promptly sold more than 4 million copies and transformed Haruki Murakami into a pop-culture icon. The horrified author fled his native land for Europe and the United States, returning only in 1995, by which time the celebrity spotlight had found some fresher targets. And now he's finally authorized a translation for the English-speaking audience, turning to the estimable Jay Rubin, who did a fine job with his big-canvas production The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Readers of Murakami's later work will discover an affecting if atypical novel, and while the author himself has denied the book's autobiographical import--"If I had simply written the literal truth of my own life, the novel would have been no more than fifteen pages long"--it's hard not to read as at least a partial portrait of the artist as a young man.
Norwegian Wood is a simple coming-of-age tale, primarily set in 1969-70, when the author was attending university. The political upheavals and student strikes of the period form the novel's backdrop. But the focus here is the young Watanabe's love affairs, and the pain and pleasure and attendant losses of growing up. The collapse of a romance (and this is one among many!) leaves him in a metaphysical shambles:
I read Naoko's letter again and again, and each time I read it I would be filled with the same unbearable sadness I used to feel whenever Naoko stared into my eyes. I had no way to deal with it, no place I could take it to or hide it away. Like the wind passing over my body, it had neither shape nor weight, nor could I wrap myself in it.
This account of a young man's sentimental education sometimes reads like a cross between Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar and Stephen Vizinczey's In Praise of Older Women. It is less complex and perhaps ultimately less satisfying than Murakami's other, more allegorical work. Still, Norwegian Wood captures the huge expectation of youth--and of this particular time in history--for the future and for the place of love in it. It is also a work saturated with sadness, an emotion that can sometimes cripple a novel but which here merely underscores its youthful poignancy. --Mark Thwaite [via] -
The Pillow Bookby Sei Shonagon, Meredith McKinneyISBN 0140448063 (0-14-044806-3)
Softcover, Penguin Classics
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Pillow Book'Book summary:The classic portrayal of court life in tenth-century Japan[via]
Written by the court gentlewoman Sei Shonagon, ostensibly for her own amusement, The Pillow Book offers a fascinating exploration of life among the nobility at the height of the Heian period, describing the exquisite pleasures of a confined world in which poetry, love, fashion, and whim dominated, while harsh reality was kept firmly at a distance. Moving elegantly across a wide range of themes including nature, society, and her own flirtations, Sei Shonagon provides a witty and intimate window on a woman's life at court in classical Japan.More editions of The Pillow Book:
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The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagonby Sei Shonagon, Arthur WaleyISBN 1417900695 (1-4179-0069-5)
Softcover, Kessinger Pub Co
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon'Book summary:The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon is an immensely detailed account of court life in eleventh-century Japan. Written at the height of Heian culture, it is a classic text of great literary beauty, full of lively anecdotes, humorous observations, and subtle impressions. Sei Shonagon was a contemporary and erstwhile rival of Lady Murasaki, whose novel, The Tale of Genji, fictionalized the court life that Lady Shonagon captures so vividly in her diary. The Pillow Book contains her reflections on royal and religious ceremonies, nature, pilgrimage, conversation, and poetry. Lady Shonagon shares character sketches and the things she both loves and loathes. Her style is so eloquent, her wit so sharp, even the briefest fragments enchant us. There is no better introduction to the daily preoccupations of the Heian upper class, and Ivan Morris's notes and contextualization enrich the material for scholars and general readers.
[via]More editions of The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon:
- The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon: ISBN 0231073372 (0-231-07337-2)
Softcover, Columbia Univ Pr - The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon: ISBN 0140442367 (0-14-044236-7)
Hardcover, Penguin - The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon: ISBN 0231073364 (0-231-07336-4)
Hardcover, Columbia Univ Pr - The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon: ISBN 1417900695 (1-4179-0069-5)
Softcover, Kessinger Pub Co
- The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon: ISBN 0231073372 (0-231-07337-2)
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Rashamon and Other Storiesby Ryunosuke AkutagawaISBN 0804814570 (0-8048-1457-0)
Softcover, Tuttle Pub
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Rashamon and Other Stories'Book summary:This fascinating collection gave birth to a new paradigm when Akira Kurosawa made famous Akutagawa's disturbing tale of seven people recounting the same incident from shockingly different perspectives.
Writing at the beginning of the twentieth century, Ryunosuke Akutagawa created disturbing stories out of Japan's cultural upheaval. Whether his fictions are set centuries past or close to the present, Akutagawa was a modernist, writing in polished, superbly nuanced prose subtly exposing human needs and flaws. "In a Grove," which was the basis for Kurosawa's classic film Rashomon, tells the chilling story of the killing of a samurai through the testimony of witnesses, including the spirit of the murdered man. The fable-like "Yam Gruel" is an account of desire and humiliation, but one in which the reader's sympathy is thoroughly unsettled. And in "The Martyr," a beloved orphan raised by Jesuit priests is exiled when he refuses to admit that he made a local girl pregnant. He regains their love and respect only at the price of his life. All six tales in the collection show Akutagawa as a master storyteller and an exciting voice of modern Japanese literature. [via]More editions of Rashamon and Other Stories:
Rashomonby Ryunosuke Akutagawa, M. Kuwata, Howard Hibbett, Takashi KojimaISBN 0871401738 (0-87140-173-8)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
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Rashomon y Otros Cuentosby Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Mirta Kikuchi, Hector MoranISBN 9879186648 (987-9186-64-8)
Softcover, Need, Negocios Editoriales de Lingenti Marinal
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Runaway Horsesby Yukio MishimaISBN 0394466187 (0-394-46618-7)
Hardcover, Knopf Publishing Group
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Runaway Horsesby Michael Gallagher, Yukio MishimaISBN 0679722408 (0-679-72240-8)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Runaway Horses'Book summary:The chronicle of a conspiracy and a novel about the roots and nature of Japanese fanaticism in the years that led to war--an era marked by depression, social change and political violence. [via]
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The Sailor Who Fell from Grace With the Seaby Yukio Mishima, John NathanISBN 0679750150 (0-679-75015-0)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Sailor Who Fell from Grace With the Sea'Book summary:"The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea" tells of a band of savage thirteen-year-old boys who reject the adult world as illusory, hypocritical, and sentimental, and train themselves in a brutal callousness they call 'ojectivity'. When the mother of one of them begins an affair with a ship's officer, he and his friends idealize the man at first; but it is not long before they conclude that he is in fact soft and romantic. They regard their disappointment in him as an act of betrayal on his part and react violently. [via]
More editions of The Sailor Who Fell from Grace With the Sea:
- The Sailor Who Fell from Grace With the Sea: ISBN 0399504893 (0-399-50489-3)
Softcover, Perigee Books - The Sailor Who Fell from Grace With the Sea: ISBN 0425020215 (0-425-02021-5)
Softcover, Berkley Pub Group - The Sailor Who Fell from Grace With the Sea: ISBN 042504372X (0-425-04372-X)
Softcover, Berkley Pub Group - The Sailor Who Fell from Grace With the Sea: ISBN 0140028668 (0-14-002866-8)
Hardcover, Penguin - The Sailor Who Fell from Grace With the Sea: ISBN 0679750150 (0-679-75015-0)
Softcover, Random House Inc
- The Sailor Who Fell from Grace With the Sea: ISBN 0399504893 (0-399-50489-3)
Snow Countryby Yasunari Kawabata, Edward SeidenstickerISBN 0679761047 (0-679-76104-7)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Snow Country'Book summary:Nobel Prize winner Yasunari Kawabata's Snow Country is widely considered to be the writer's masterpiece: a powerful tale of wasted love set amid the desolate beauty of western Japan. At an isolated mountain hot spring, with snow blanketing every surface, Shimamura, a wealthy dilettante meets Komako, a lowly geisha. She gives herself to him fully and without remorse, despite knowing that their passion cannot last and that the affair can have only one outcome. In chronicling the course of this doomed romance, Kawabata has created a story for the ages - a stunning novel dense in implication and exalting in its sadness. [via]
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Spring Snowby Yukio MishimaISBN 0679722416 (0-679-72241-6)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Spring Snow'Book summary:Tokyo, 1912. The closed world of the ancient aristocracy is being breached for the first time by outsiders - rich provincial familes, a new and powerful political and social elite. Kiyoaki has been raised among the elegant Ayakura family - members of the waning aristocracy - but he is not one of them. Coming of age, he is caught up in the tensions between old and new, and his feelings for the exquisite, spirited Satoko, observed from the sidelines by his devoted friend Honda. When Satoko is engaged to a royal prince, Kiyoaki realises the magnitude of his passion. [via]
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Sputnik Sweetheartby Haruki Murakami, J. Philip Gabriel, Philip GabrielISBN 0375726055 (0-375-72605-5)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Sputnik Sweetheart'Book summary:Sputnik Sweetheart finds Haruki Murakami in his minimalist mode. Shorter than the sweeping Wind-up Bird Chronicle, less playfully bizarre than A Wild Sheep Chase, the author's seventh novel distills his signature themes into a powerful story about the loneliness of the human condition. "There was nothing solid we could depend on," the reader is told. "We were nearly boundless zeros, just pitiful little beings swept from one kind of oblivion to another."
The narrator is a teacher whose only close friend is Sumire, an aspiring young novelist with chronic writer's block. Sumire is suddenly smitten with a sophisticated businesswoman and accompanies her love object to Europe where, on a tiny Greek island, she disappears "like smoke." The schoolteacher hastens to the island in search of his friend. And there he discovers two documents on her computer, one of which reveals a chilling secret about Sumire's lover.
Sputnik Sweetheart is a melancholy love story, and its deceptively simple prose is saturated with sadness. Characters struggle to connect with one another but never quite succeed. Like the satellite of the title they are essentially alone. And by toning down the pyrotechnics of his earlier work, Murakami has created a world that is simultaneously mundane and disturbing--where doppelgängers and vanishing cats produce a pervasive atmosphere of alienation, and identity itself seems like a terribly fragile thing. --Simon Leake [via]
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The Tale Of Genjiby Murasaki Shikibu, Royall TylerISBN 014243714X (0-14-243714-X)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Tale Of Genji'Book summary:NA [via]
More editions of The Tale Of Genji:
- Tale of Genji: ISBN 0394735307 (0-394-73530-7)
Softcover, Random House Inc - The Tale Of Genji: ISBN 0486414159 (0-486-41415-9)
Softcover, Dover Pubns - Tale of Genji: ISBN 0679729534 (0-679-72953-4)
Softcover, Random House Inc - Tale of Genji: ISBN 0804838232 (0-8048-3823-2)
Softcover, Tuttle Pub - The Tale Of Genji: ISBN 0679417389 (0-679-41738-9)
Hardcover, Random House Inc - The Tale Of Genji: ISBN 0394729218 (0-394-72921-8)
Softcover, Vintage Books - The Tale Of Genji: ISBN 004823012X (0-04-823012-X)
Hardcover, Allen and Unwin - The Tale Of Genji: ISBN 0048231096 (0-04-823109-6)
Hardcover, Allen and Unwin - The Tale Of Genji: ISBN 0394483286 (0-394-48328-6)
Hardcover, Random House Inc - The Tale Of Genji: ISBN 0436459507 (0-436-45950-7)
Hardcover, Secker and Warburg - The Tale Of Genji: ISBN 014243714X (0-14-243714-X)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
- Tale of Genji: ISBN 0394735307 (0-394-73530-7)
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The Tale Of Genjiby Royall Tyler, Murasaki ShikibuISBN 0143039490 (0-14-303949-0)
Softcover, Penguin Classics
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Tale Of Genji'Book summary:In the tradition of Robert Fagles's translation of the Iliad and the Odyssey, Viking presents a stunning translation of Lady Murasaki's exquisite portrait of courtly life in medieval Japan. Written in the eleventh century, The Tale of Genji is widely celebrated as the world's first novel, but as Donald Keene has observed, it is also "one of its greatest." Genji the Shining Prince, the son of an emperor, is a passionate character whose tempestuous nature, family circumstances, love affairs, alliances, and shifting political fortunes form the core of this magnificent epic. Throughout, The Tale of Genji offers a lively and well-rounded glimpse of golden age Japan with a cast of characters as richly conceived and nuanced as those of Proust. Royall Tyler's superb translation, detailed and poetic, is scrupulously true to the Japanese original but appeals immediately to the modern reader as well. Tyler includes detailed notes, glossaries, character lists, and chronologies to help the reader navigate the multigenerational narrative and its references. Magnificently packaged in a two-volume set with a slipcase, this is a literary event comparable to Seamus Heaney's bestselling translation of Beowulf. It will spark interest in this masterpiece of world literature and serve as the standard edition for many years to come.
Translated by Royall Tyler. [via] -
Tale of Genjiby Donald Keene, Murasaki Shikubu, Masayuki Miyata, H. MacK Horton, Setouchi JakuchoISBN 4770027729 (4-7700-2772-9)
Softcover, Kodansha Amer Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Tale of Genji'Book summary:A lushly illustrated edition of a world classic
The third in this series of illustrated Japanese classics, The Tale of Genji again combines Miyata's captivating paper cut-outs with a modern retelling of a vintage story. This well-known tale of the amorous adventures of Prince Genji is widely considered world literature's first novel, and with its precise and poetic prose, it is also considered one of its finest.
Written with precision by a lady of the Japanese court, Genji's Don Juan-like clandestine rendezvous with lovers in their perfumed boudoirs or on mossy moonlit garden paths, continues to intrigue lovers of literature. What sets Genji apart from the typically carefree playboy is the intensity of his emotional attachment for each of his lovers. Long after an affair has ended, Genji continues to cherish the encounter. His is an age-old tale, as well as a poignant and brilliant portrait of Japan's ancient court life. [via]More editions of Tale of Genji:
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The Tale Of Genjiby Kencho Suematsu, Murasaki ShikibuISBN 0804832560 (0-8048-3256-0)
Softcover, Tuttle Pub
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Tale Of Genji'Book summary:This biographical novel centers around the amorous exploits of Prince Hikaru Genji, whose elegance and talent epitomized the values of Heian Japan, an era in which indigenous Japanese culture still held prominence over the Chinese culture that would come to dominate Japan. [via]
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The Tale of Genjiby Shikibu Murasaki, Arthur WaleyISBN 0679424679 (0-679-42467-9)
Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Tale of Genji'Book summary:One of the world's oldest novels and the greatest single work of Japanese literature, this 11th-century romance centers on the lives and loves of an emperor's son. It offers a vast tapestry of the intrigues and rivalries of court life, as well as an exquisitely detailed portrayal of a decaying aristocracy.[via]More editions of The Tale of Genji:
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Tale of Genji-Oneby L. MurasakiISBN 038509275X (0-385-09275-X)
Softcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Tale of Genji-One'Book summary:brilliant account of courtly life in medieval Japan, [via]
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The Temple of Dawnby Yukio MishimaISBN 0679722424 (0-679-72242-4)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Temple of Dawn'Book summary:The third book in Mishima's landmark The Sea of Fertility sequence, this novel tells the story of one man's obsessive pursuit of a beautiful woman and his equally passionate search for enlightenment. [via]
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The Temple of the Golden Pavilionby Yukio MishimaISBN 0679752706 (0-679-75270-6)
Softcover, Vintage Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Temple of the Golden Pavilion'Book summary:(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)
In The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, celebrated Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima creates a haunting portrait of a young mans obsession with idealized beauty and his destructive quest to possess it fully.
Mizoguchi, an ostracized stutterer, develops a childhood fascination with Kyotos famous Golden Temple. While an acolyte at the temple, he fixates on the structures aesthetic perfection and it becomes his one and only object of desire. But as Mizoguchi begins to perceive flaws in the temple, he determines that the only true path to beauty lies in an act of horrific violence. Based on a real incident that occurred in 1950, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion brilliantly portrays the passions and agonies of a young man in postwar Japan, bringing to the subject the erotic imagination and instinct for the dramatic moment that marked Mishima as one of the towering makers of modern fiction.
Introduction by Donald Keene; Translated from the Japanese by Ivan Morris [via]More editions of The Temple of the Golden Pavilion:
Thousand Cranesby Yasunari Kawabata, Edward G. SeidenstickerISBN 0679762655 (0-679-76265-5)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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A Wild Sheep Chaseby Haruki Murakami, Alfred T. BirnbaumISBN 0870119052 (0-87011-905-2)
Hardcover, Kodansha America, Incorporated
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Wild Sheep Chase'Book summary:Murakami has crafted a taut and suspenseful novel that is equal parts detective story, fantasy, and Kafkaesque allegory. In a Japan of the imagination, an advertising executive is sent on a harrowing journey in pursuit of a mythical sheep reported to embody an irresistible will to absolute power. [via]
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A Wild Sheep Chase: Library Editionby Alfred Birnbaum, Haruki MurakamiISBN 037571894X (0-375-71894-X)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Wild Sheep Chase: Library Edition'Book summary:A marvelous hybrid of mythology and mystery, A Wild Sheep Chase is the extraordinary literary thriller that launched Haruki Murakamis international reputation.
It begins simply enough: A twenty-something advertising executive receives a postcard from a friend, and casually appropriates the image for an insurance companys advertisement. What he doesnt realize is that included in the pastoral scene is a mutant sheep with a star on its back, and in using this photo he has unwittingly captured the attention of a man in black who offers a menacing ultimatum: find the sheep or face dire consequences. Thus begins a surreal and elaborate quest that takes our hero from the urban haunts of Tokyo to the remote and snowy mountains of northern Japan, where he confronts not only the mythological sheep, but the confines of tradition and the demons deep within himself. Quirky and utterly captivating, A Wild Sheep Chase is Murakami at his astounding best. [via]More editions of A Wild Sheep Chase: Library Edition:
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The Wind-Up Bird Chronicleby Haruki MurakamiISBN 1860464696 (1-86046-469-6)
Softcover, Harvill Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle'Book summary:Bad things come in threes for Toru Okada. He loses his job, his cat disappears, and then his wife fails to return from work. His search for his wife (and his cat) introduces him to a bizarre collection of characters, including two psychic sisters, a possibly unbalanced teenager, an old soldier who witnessed the massacres on the Chinese mainland at the beginning of the Second World War, and a very shady politician.
Haruki Murakami is a master of subtly disturbing prose. Mundane events throb with menace, while the bizarre is accepted without comment. Meaning always seems to be just out of reach, for the reader as well as for the characters, yet one is drawn inexorably into a mystery that may have no solution. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is an extended meditation on themes that appear throughout Murakami's earlier work. The tropes of popular culture, movies, music, detective stories, combine to create a work that explores both the surface and the hidden depths of Japanese society at the end of the 20th century.
If it were possible to isolate one theme in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, that theme would be responsibility. The atrocities committed by the Japanese army in China keep rising to the surface like a repressed memory, and Toru Okada himself is compelled by events to take responsibility for his actions and struggle with his essentially passive nature. If Toru is supposed to be a Japanese Everyman, steeped as he is in Western popular culture and ignorant of the secret history of his own nation, this novel paints a bleak picture. Like the winding up of the titular bird, Murakami slowly twists the gossamer threads of his story into something of considerable weight. --Simon Leake [via]
More editions of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle:
- The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: ISBN 186046470X (1-86046-470-X)
Softcover, Harvill Pr - The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: ISBN 1860465811 (1-86046-581-1)
Softcover, Harvill Pr - The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: ISBN 0679775439 (0-679-77543-9)
Softcover, Random House Inc - The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: ISBN 0679446699 (0-679-44669-9)
Hardcover, Knopf Publishing Group - The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: ISBN 1860464696 (1-86046-469-6)
Softcover, Harvill Pr
- The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: ISBN 186046470X (1-86046-470-X)
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The Woman in the Dunesby Kobo AbeISBN 0679733787 (0-679-73378-7)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Woman in the Dunes'Book summary:This beautiful novel by one of Japan's most important writers is also one of the most strangely terrifying and memorable books you'll ever read. The Woman in the Dunes is the story of an amateur entomologist who wanders alone into a remote seaside village in pursuit of a rare beetle he wants to add to his collection. But the townspeople take him prisoner. They lower him into the sand-pit home of a young widow, a pariah in the poor community, who the villagers have condemned to a life of shoveling back the ever-encroaching dunes that threaten to bury the town. An amazing book. [via]
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Lo Bello Y Lo Tristeby Yasunari KawabataISBN 9500422239 (950-04-2223-9)
Softcover, Planeta Pub Corp
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Sputnik, Mi Amor / Sputnik, Sweetheartby Haruki MurakamiISBN 8483102161 (84-8310-216-1)
Softcover, Ediciones Urano
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Tokio Bluesby Haruki Murakami, Lourdes Porta FuentesISBN 8483103079 (84-8310-307-9)
Softcover, Tusquets USA Pub
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