Japanese Journies in Literature
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Do you enjoy traveling through reading about a place? Then you will love this lens.
Some of us either don't travel and like to learn about other countries vicariously through reading, or we have been there and enjoy books that mention places where we have been.
I have put together some recommendations here of my top rated books that take place in or about Japan or the Japanese. This list should produce hours of reading pleasure.
Over time I will be rotating books in and out, so favorite it or bookmark it now. Also share your favorite writer or book set in Japan in the guestbook.
The Tale of Genji
by Lady Murasaki Shikibu
The Tale of Genji: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
Amazon Price: $15.84 (as of 05/27/2012)
This book is about midieval Japan. The author wrote it in the eleventh century, now that's historical fiction about royalty and court life.
The Old Capital
Written by Yasunari Kawabata
Some of Kawabata's other works are:
The Housekeeper and the Professor
The Divining Pool: Three Novellas
and
Hotel Iris: A Novel
The Old Capital
Amazon Price: $6.49 (as of 05/27/2012)
This tale is about Chieko who lives in Toyko and how she runs into her "real sister" and has all kinds of emotions about being an adopted child.
Tokyo Year Zero
by David Peace
Tokyo Year Zero (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard)
Amazon Price: $3.81 (as of 05/27/2012)
This is a mystery set in the country right after the end of Word War II. This author is British.
An Artist of the Floating World
by Kazuo Ishiguro
An Artist of the Floating World
Amazon Price: $5.45 (as of 05/27/2012)
A Wild Sheep Chase
by Haruki Murakami
A Wild Sheep Chase: A Novel
Amazon Price: $8.45 (as of 05/27/2012)
About a metaphysical quest by a contemporary Japanese writer.
Japanese Literature Mug: Basho Matsuo
Movies are Another Way to Travel While Still at Home
Movie Journies to Japan
Books by Gaijins or Foreigners Living in Japan
Looking for the Lost: Journeys Through a Vanishing Japan
By Alan Booth
Looking for the Lost: Journeys Through a Vanishing Japan (Kodansha Globe)
Amazon Price: $6.99 (as of 05/27/2012)
He re-traces the routes of three people who went before him. You will get a feel of what Japan was like before modernization. This author died in 1992.
Tokyo: An American Reported on the Police Beat in Japan
by Jake Adelstein
Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard) By Jake Adelstein
Amazon Price: $11.88 (as of 05/27/2012)
Take This Poll
Books written by Japanese Americans
The Buddha in the Attic
The Buddha in the Attic
Amazon Price: $7.58 (as of 05/27/2012)
This novel follows some women who come from Japan to San Francisco with uncertain futures. They must first learn English. They make their livings picking fruit or cleaning for white women. They have children and what happens when the children grow up.
The author Julie Otsuka has been awarded the Asian American Literary Award and the American Library Association Alex Award. She also has a Guggenheim Fellowship. She resides in New York City. Also wrote When the Emperor Was Divine.
More Lenses to Discover
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If You Have a Favorite Book or Author Who Writes About Japan
Please share the title or name here, thanks!
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EditorDave Nov 12, 2011 @ 7:32 pm | delete
- I like "Memoirs of a Geisha" (both the movie and the novel) and the mystery novels by Laura Joh Rowland--set in feudal Japan. Congratulations on a Squidoo masterpiece!
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