After the Quake
Author: Haruki Murakami
Alternate cover edition here.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 Af….Read More
16 Books Similar to After the Quake
After Dark
The midnight hour approaches in an almost empty all-night diner. Mari sips her coffee and glances up from a book as a young man, a musician, intrudes on her solitude.… Continue Reading Posted in: Authors, Japanese, Man Woman Relationships, Translations Into English
Asleep
Banana Yoshimoto has a magical ability to animate the lives of her young characters, and here she spins the stories of three women, all bewitched into a spiritual sleep. One,… Continue Reading Posted in: Contemporary Literature & Fiction, Japanese Fiction, Social Life And Customs, Translations Into English
Kitchen
Kitchen juxtaposes two tales about mothers, transsexuality, bereavement, kitchens, love and tragedy in contemporary Japan. It is a startlingly original first work by Japan's brightest young literary star and is… Continue Reading Posted in: 1964, 20th Century, Banana, Contemporary Literature & Fiction, Japanese Literature, Yoshimoto
The Elephant Vanishes
When a man's favourite elephant vanishes, the balance of his whole life is subtly upset; a couple's midnight hunger pangs drive them to hold up a McDonald's; a woman finds… Continue Reading Posted in: Asahara, ShåKå, Short Stories, Social Life And Customs
N.P.
N.P. is the title of a last collection of short stories by a celebrated Japanese writer. Written in English while he was living in Boston, the book may never see… Continue Reading Posted in: Authors, Japanese, Japanese Fiction
Sputnik Sweetheart
alternate cover can be found hereSumire is in love with a woman seventeen years her senior. But whereas Miu is glamorous and successful, Sumire is an aspiring writer who dresses… Continue Reading Posted in: Lesbianism, Love Stories, Women Novelists
Amrita
A celebrated actress who has died in mysterious and shocking circumstances leaves behind an unconventional extended family that includes an older sister, a woman in her twenties through whose eyes… Continue Reading Posted in: Authors, Domestic Fiction, Japanese, Self Realization
South of the Border, West of the Sun
Alternate cover edition here.Growing up in the suburbs of post-war Japan, it seemed to Hajime that everyone but him had brothers and sisters. His sole companion was Shimamoto, also an… Continue Reading Posted in: Businessmen, Chinese Fiction, Literary Short Stories, Love Stories, Psychological Literary Fiction
Vertigo
Part fiction, part travelogue, the narrator of this compelling masterpiece pursues his solitary, eccentric course from England to Italy and beyond, succumbing to the vertiginous unreliability of memory itself. What… Continue Reading Posted in: 1783 1842, Autobiographical Fiction, German, Stendhal
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
A New York Times and Washington Post notable book, and one of the Financial Times, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Slate, Mother Jones, The Daily Beast, and BookPage's best books of the… Continue Reading Posted in: Europe, Fiction, Text
Lizard
In these six stories, the author of Tugumi and NP explores themes of time, healing and fate, and how her urban, sophisticated, independent young men and women come to terms… Continue Reading Posted in: English, Short Stories, Translated From Japanese
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
Alternate cover edition here.'A narrative particle accelerator that zooms between Wild Turkey Whiskey and Bob Dylan, unicorn skulls and voracious librarians, John Coltrane and Lord Jim. Science fiction, detective story… Continue Reading Posted in: Authors, Japan Tokyo, Japanese, Japanese Fiction (English)
Kokoro
Hailed by The New Yorker as "rich in understanding and insight," Kokoro — "the heart of things" — is the work of one of Japan's most popular authors. This thought-provoking… Continue Reading Posted in: Asian Literary History & Criticism, Eastern Philosophy, Friendship, Japanese Fiction, Life
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Alternate cover edition here.Toru Okada's cat has disappeared and this has unsettled his wife, who is herself growing more distant every day. Then there are the increasingly explicit telephone calls… Continue Reading Posted in: Japanese Fiction Heisei Period, Japanese Fiction Translations Into English, Man Woman Relationships
Dance Dance Dance
Alternate cover edition here.High-class call girls billed to Mastercard. A psychic 13-year-old dropout with a passion for Talking Heads. A hunky matinee idol doomed to play dentists and teachers. A… Continue Reading Posted in: Identity (Psychology), International Mystery & Crime, Japan, Magical Realism, Prostitutes
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