Review by Tina deBellegarde Sayaka Murata’s Life Ceremony, translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori, is a wildly imaginative and chilling short story collection about loners and outcasts. Once again, Murata writes about non-conformity and once again she does it in her unique subversive style. She presents us with a world turned on its head, where what More…
A delightful book of short stories from Kyoko Nakajima, author of The Little House, and winner of the Naoki Prize
Recollections and our desire to remember things a certain way blur our reality and intrude on our ability to see the present clearly.
Opens as a coming-of-age story, evolves into psychological suspense, and settles into dark fantasy and horror.
Grove Press (October 8, 2020) Review by Tina deBellegarde Earthlings by Sayaka Murata (transl. Ginny Tapley Takemori) is a unique literary experience, one that is impossible to pigeonhole into any specific genre. It opens as a coming-of-age story, evolves into psychological suspense, and settles into dark fantasy and horror. As she did in Convenience Store More…
NEW RELEASE! Moving stories that tell of the absurd violence of war, and tenderly depict the animals and children caught in its vortex.
The Cake Tree in the Ruins, by Akiyuki Nosaka (Transl. Ginny Tapley Takemori) Pushkin Press (Nov. 13, 2018) Reviewed by Suzanne Kamata As an American reader, conditioned to expect happily-ever-after endings, or at least those in which justice is served, I found this to be an odd and disturbing book. From the titles of stories More…
Convenience Store Woman was originally published as Conbini ningen (Bungeishunju Ltd., Tokyo, 2016) Ginny Tapley Takemori talks with Books on Asia about translating “Convenience Store Woman,” for the English audience Books on Asia: Convenience Store Woman challenges us to reconsider how we should define a “normal person” in modern society and prods us to accept More…
Your guide to finding quality books
on Japan and Asia
