Five Modern Japanese Novelists

Download or read book Five Modern Japanese Novelists written by Donald Keene and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2005-06-22 with total page 127 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New Yorker has called Donald Keene "America's preeminent scholar of Japanese literature." Now he presents a new book that serves as both a superb introduction to modern Japanese fiction and a memoir of his own lifelong love affair with Japanese literature and culture. Five Modern Japanese Novelistsprofiles five prominent writers whom Donald Keene knew personally: Tanizaki Jun'ichiro, Kawabata Yasunari, Mishima Yukio, Abe Kobo, and Shiba Ryotaro. Keene masterfully blends vignettes describing his personal encounters with these famous men with autobiographical observations and his trademark learned literary and cultural analysis. Keene opens with a confession: before arriving in Japan in 1953, despite having taught Japanese for several years at Cambridge, he knew the name of only one living Japanese writer: Tanizaki. Keene's training in classical Japanese literature and fluency in the language proved marvelous preparation, though, for the journey of literary discovery that began with that first trip to Japan, as he came into contact, sometimes quite fortuitously, with the genius of a generation. It is a journey that will fascinate experts and newcomers alike

Download or read book Modern Japanese Writers written by Jay Rubin and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first encyclopedia in the Scribner Writers Series to focus on Asian writers and genres. It highlights 25 of the most widely translated Japanese authors, such as Yukio Mishima, Kobo Abe, Junichiro Tanizaki and Fumiko Enchi.

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 626 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 Tokyo Fragments written by and published by Stone Bridge Press. This book was released on 2004-01 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Tokyo Fragments, five of Japan's most popular contemporary writers of fiction present their vision of life in different quarters of Japan's capital. Spend a day with Ryota and Hiroshi on the mean streets of Shinjuku, spying on visitors to the local love hotel and sniffing glue in station toilets. Eavesdrop on the regulars at a bar in the old town as they fantasize about a fellow-customer who claims to work in the insurance business - but may be more experienced at taking life than insuring it. Join Eriko as she hunts for Mr. Right in trendy western Tokyo. Can you judge men by the same standards you apply to consumer goods? Maybe you can, but you'd better watch out for counterfeits!

Download or read book Modern Japanese Stories written by Ivan I. Morris and published by Tuttle Publishing. This book was released on 1961 with total page 524 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories written by Jay Rubin and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2018-06-28 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This fantastically varied and exciting collection celebrates the great Japanese short story, from its modern origins in the nineteenth century to the remarkable works being written today. Short story writers already well-known to English-language readers are all included here - Tanizaki, Akutagawa, Murakami, Mishima, Kawabata - but also many surprising new finds. From Yuko Tsushima's 'Flames' to Yuten Sawanishi's 'Filling Up with Sugar', from Shin'ichi Hoshi's 'Shoulder-Top Secretary' to Banana Yoshimoto's 'Bee Honey', The Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories is filled with fear, charm, beauty and comedy. Curated by Jay Rubin, who has himself freshly translated several of the stories, and introduced by Haruki Murakami, this book will be a revelation to its readers.

Download or read book Five Modern Japanese Novelists written by Donald Keene and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2005-08-04 with total page 127 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A superb introduction to modern Japanese fiction as well as a memoir of his own love affair with Japanese literature and culture, this volume consists of chapters on five modern Japanese novelists whom Donald Keene knew personally: Yasunari Kawabata, Yukio Mishima, Jun'ichiro Tanizaki, Ryotaro Shiba, and Kobo Abe. Each chapter opens with a vignette describing Keene's personal encounters with these famous men, blending his autobiographical observations with literary and cultural analysis.