This text surveys the accomplishments of Nobel Prize winner Oe Kenzaburo and other writers of the post-war generation, while looking further to examine the literary parameters of the "post-Oe" generation. It includes essays on Endo Shusaku, Hayashi Kyoko, Kanai Mieko, Kurahashi Yumiko, Murakami Haruki, Murakami Ryu, Nakagami Kenji, Oe Kenzaburo, Oh...more
Spirit Matters is a ground-breaking work, the first to explore a broad range of writings on spirituality in contemporary Japanese literature. It draws on a variety of literary works, from enormously popular fiction (Miura Ayako’s Hyôten and Shirokari Pass and the novels of Murakami Haruki) to more problematic "serious" fiction (Ôe Kenzaburô’...more
In her bestselling and critically acclaimed novel Chocolat, Joanne Harris told a lush story of the conflicts between pleasure and repression. Now she delivers her most complex and sophisticated work yet, an unforgettable tale of mothers and daughters, of the past and the present, of resisting and succumbing -- an extraordinary work of fiction lined...more
This text presents a searching study of Shimao Toshio and his work. It is not only a thorough assessment of his literary legacy, but also aims to consider the broader issues relating to the emergence and nature of the postwar Japanese sense of identity. The book contextualizes Toshio's "dream stories" as a literary expression of wartime trauma, and...more
In spite of the perpetrators' intentions, the Tokyo gas attack left only twelve people dead, but thousands were injured and many suffered serious after-effects. The novelist Haruki Murakami interviews the victims to try and establish precisely what happened on the subway that day. He also interviews members and ex-members of the doomsdays cult resp...more