Pachinko by Min Jin Lee is a rare find. It’s an epic family saga, enlightening historical novel, tragic love story, exploration of identity and so much more. Not to mention, how beautiful is the cover? Pachinko traces the life, joys, struggles and misfortunes of an immigrant Korean family in Japan. It begins in a rural Korean … Continue reading
Back in 2015, I reviewed Michael Booth’s ‘Sushi and Beyond: What the Japanese Know about Cooking’ and interviewed the author himself. Booth has a lot of people’s dream jobs – he’s a best-selling author and journalist who writes predominantly about travel and food. ‘The Meaning of Rice: and Other Tales from the Belly of Japan’ … Continue reading
The years leading up to the end of the Edo period, in which foreign invaders piled pressure upon pressure on Japan until the country was forced to open its doors to the world again, is a particularly interesting period in the country’s history. Generally, this tumultuous period in the country’s history is often told from … Continue reading
Back in 2014 I reviewed The Reason I Jump by Naoki Higashida, a highly acclaimed novel from a 13 year old Japanese boy with non-verbal autism. Not only was this book a fascinating insight into autism, a condition I knew very little about, but the story of how it reached international acclaim is also very … Continue reading
Hideo Yokoyama’s Six Four is one of those books that – for a few months – I saw everywhere I went, and for a very good reason. Yokoyama is incredibly popular in Japan and Six Four, his sixth novel, is his first to be translated in English. There’s no shortage of crime thrillers on UK … Continue reading
The challenge in writing short stories is quite different to writing a full-length novel. You have less pages to not only develop the story but also the character, the narrative and the reader’s connection with the characters. Tokyo Tales: A Collection of Japanese Short Stories, by Renae Lucas-Hall, manages to meet this challenge with its colourful … Continue reading
Japanese literature fans may already be aware that Pushkin Press has been releasing a series of Japanese novellas this year. The latest of these releases is Hideo Furukawa’s Slow Boat, a story of a man trapped in Tokyo. Slow Boat flits between the present, as our narrator Boku wanders a deserted Tokyo on Christmas Eve, and the … Continue reading
I recently won several books in a competition held by Love Japan Magazine, which is basically the best kind of prize I could ever win (next to an actual trip to Japan). I was spoiled for choice with some great books but Nicholas Hogg’s Tokyo was the first I picked up because its plot had me immediately … Continue reading
It won’t come as a shock to anyone reading this blog that Japanese culture is very different to British – or western – culture. The importance of bowing, the unspoken rules of gift giving, the importance of religious observation for even the coolest of teenagers, the attitude towards women in the workplace and private life… … Continue reading
You will likely have seen trailers and posters for Martin Scorcese’s latest film, Silence, which was released in the UK at the beginning of this year. Unfortunately, I missed the film because I was determined to read the novel it was based on first and subsequently missed the screenings. So, my review of Shusaku Endo’s … Continue reading
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