I am trying to learn, with my tongue, sounds that are unfamiliar to me. A foreign-sounding word learned out of curiosity is not imitation per se. All of these things I learn leave traces that slowly grow to coexist with my accent. And that balancing act goes on changing indefinitely.

How perfect that Yoko Tawada's first essay in English dives deep into her lifelong fascination with the possibilities opened up by cross-hybridizing languages.
Tawada famously writes in both Japanese and German, but her interest in language reaches beyond any mere dichotomy. The term exophonic, which she first heard in Senegal, has a special allure for the author: I was already familiar with similar terms, 'immigrant literature, ' or 'creole literature, ' but 'exophonic' had a much broader meaning, referring to the general experience of existing outside of one's mother tongue.

Tawada revels in explorations of cross-cultural and intra-language possibilities (and along the way deals several nice sharp raps to the primacy of English). The accent here, as in her fiction, is the art of drawing closer to the world through defamiliarization. Never entertaining a received thought, Tawada seeks the still-to-be-discovered truths, as well as what might possibly be invented entirely whole cloth. Exophony opens a new vista into Yoko Tawada's world, and delivers more of her signature erudite wit--at once cross-grained and generous, laser-focused and multidimensional, slyly ironic and warmly companionable.

A classic tale that will captivate lovers of Japan, history, and epic adventure alike.

Japan's most celebrated tale of chivalry, loyalty and revenge--and the basis for a Hollywood feature film starring Keanu Reaves--47 Ronin is the epic tale of a heroic band of Samurai warriors who defy the Japanese Emperor to avenge the honor of their fallen master.

The story begins in 1701 when the noble Lord Asano attacks an official at court. His punishment is swift and harsh--the Emperor orders Lord Asano to commit ritual suicide (harikiri). His lands are confiscated, his family exiled, and his Samurai warrior brigade is disbanded--becoming Ronin or masterless, wandering renegades.

While appearing to follow the Emperor's instructions, the 47 Ronin plot in secret for many years, biding their time until the moment to strike is right. Like the story of the Knights of the Round Table, the Ronin's deeds became legendary, iconic examples of courage, cunning and loyalty in an age when the Samurai were true heroes and honor was something worth dying for.

John Allyn's vivid retelling, with a foreword by scholar and film advisor, Stephen Turnbull, presents this epic of Japanese literature in its correct historical context.

Modern Japanese Short Stories is a remarkable collection of Japanese stories from the pioneers of contemporary Japanese literature. This volume's twenty-five stories by as many authors display a wide range of style and subject matter--offering a revealing picture of modern Japanese culture and society.

The stories in this anthology include:

• Tattoo by Junichiro Tanizaki--a large spider tattooed on the back of a young woman results in unexpected changes
• Autumn Mountain by Ryunosuke Akutagawa--vivid memories of a beautiful painting leads a man to wonder if the it ever actually existed
• The Priest and His Love by Yukio Mishima--a Buddhist priest finds his path to enlightenment challenged after falling in love
• The Moon on the Water by Nobel Prize winner Yasunari Kawabata--a young woman who cared for her ailing first husband through most of their marriage regrets remarrying after his death

Featuring a new foreword by Japanese literary scholar Seiji Lippit and striking woodcut illustrations by Masakazu Kuwata, the stories are translated by the editor, Ivan Morris, and Edward Seidensticker, George Saito, and Geoffery Sargent. This collection of short stories shows why Japanese literature is so highly valued today--it teaches not only about Japan, but about the human condition and the possibilities of art.

Lavishly opulent stories of sensual obsession, cultural heritage, and mythological creatures--translated into English for the first time--from a classic Japanese writer

Featuring The Qilin, The Siren's Lament, and the novella Killing O-Tsuya, this gorgeous new edition of 3 classic works translated by Bryan Karetnyk distills the essence of Jun'ichirō Tanizaki's shorter fiction: the co-mingling of Japanese and Chinese mythologies, the chillingly dark side of desire, and the paper-thin line between the sublime and the depraved.

• The Qilin The sage Confucius travels to a kingdom ruled by a struggling duke, whose pursuit of virtue is threatened by his consort's obsession desire for pleasure.
• Killing O-Tsuya A naïve servant elopes with his master's daughter, only to be plunged headlong into a world of murder and corruption.
• The Siren's Lament Exhausted by a lifestyle of never-ending debauchery, a young prince finds himself in possession of a dazzling, beguiling mermaid.

The essential short works of one of the most important and widely-read figured in modern Japanese literature, author of hugely popular works including In Praise of Shadows, The Makioka Sisters, and Naomi; renowned for his investigations of family dynamics, eroticism, and cultural identity.

Japanese Legends and Folklore invites English speakers into the intriguing world of Japanese folktales, ghost stories and historical eyewitness accounts. With a fascinating selection of stories about Japanese culture and history, A.B. Mitford--who lived and worked in Japan as a British diplomat--presents a broad cross section of tales from many Japanese sources. Discover more about practically every aspect of Japanese life--from myths and legends to society and religion.

This book features 30 fascinating Japanese stories, including:

• The Forty-Seven Ronin--the famous, epic tale of a loyal band of Samurai warriors who pay the ultimate price for avenging the honor of their fallen master.
• The Tongue-Cut Sparrow--a good-hearted old man is richly rewarded when he begs forgiveness from a sparrow who is injured by his spiteful, greedy wife.
• The Adventures of Little Peach Boy--a tale familiar to generations of Japanese children, a small boy born from a peach is adopted by a kindly childless couple.
• Japanese Sermons--a selection of sermons written by a priest belonging to the Shingaku sect, which combines Buddhist, Shinto and Confucian teachings.
• An Account of Hara-Kiri--Mitford's dramatic first person account of a ritual Samurai suicide, the first time it had been reported in English.

Thirty-one reproductions of woodblock prints bring the classic tales and essays to life. These influential stories helped shape the West's understanding of Japanese culture. A new foreword by Professor Michael Dylan Foster sheds light on the book's importance as a groundbreaking work of Japanese folklore, literature and history.

This collection of writings from Lafcadio Hearn paints a rare and fascinating picture of pre-modern Japan.

Over a century after his death, author, translator, and educator Lafcadio Hearn remains one of the best-known Westerners ever to make Japan his home. His prolific writings on things Japanese were instrumental in introducing Japanese culture to the West.

In this masterful anthology, Donald Richie shows that Hearn was a reliable and enthusiastic observer who faithfully recorded detailed accounts of the people, customs, and culture of late 19th-century Japan. Opening and closing with excerpts from Hearn's final books, Richie's astute selection from among over 4,000 printed pages also reveals Hearn's later, more sober and reflective attitudes to the things that he observed and wrote about.

Part One, The Land, chronicles Hearn's early years when he wrote primarily about the appearance of his adopted home. Part Two, The People, records the author's later years when he came to terms with the Japanese people themselves.

The 18 writings include:

The Chief City of the Province of the Gods

Three Popular Ballads

In the Cave of the Children's Ghosts

Bits of Life and Death

A Street Singer

Kimiko

On A Bridge

Through Lafcadio Hearn's Japan, discover turn-of-the-century Japan through the eyes of a talented and eloquent observer.

Gan (geese) evokes Meiji-era Tokyo: its alleyways, rivers, mansions, poverty, and occasionally tense class interactions. Okada, a student at the most prestigious university in Japan becomes entangled in the romance of a disenfranchised woman and an ethically suspect merchant. At a time of rapid social change, Mori examines the social and economic pressures that continue to bind it's characters, who yearn for freedom. Circumstance, rigid social structure, and the familial and financial obligations drive the characters forward to Gan's powerful ending. Notable for it's deep exploration of character motivation, as well as its wonderfully elaborate female characters, Gan is an exceptional example of early 20th century Japanese Literature. It looks on a changing world, explores its faults and glimmers of hope, and lingers for a moment, bittersweet, at the thought of it's passing.

Five charming novellas ... which have astonishing freshness, color, and warmth.-- The New Yorker

First published in 1686, this collection of five novellas by Ihara Saikaku was an immediate bestseller in the bawdy world of Genroku Japan. The book's popularity has only increased with age, making it a literary classic like Boccaccio's Decameron, or the works of Rabelais.

Each of the five stories follows a determined woman on her quest for amorous adventure:

The Story of Seijuro in Himeji -- Onatsu, already wise in the ways of love the tender age of sixteen.

The Barrelmaker Brimful of Love -- Osen, a faithful wife until unjustly accused of adultery.

What the Seasons Brought the Almanac Maker-- Osan, a Kyoto beauty who falls asleep in the wrong bed.

The Greengrocer's Daughter with a Bundle of Love -- Oshichi, willing to burn down a city to meet her samurai lover.

Gengobei, the Mountain of Love -- Oman, who has to compete with handsome boys to win her lover's affections.

But the book is more than a collection of skillfully told erotic tales, for Saikaku ...could not delve into the inmost secrets of human life only to expose them to ridicule or snickering prurience. Obviously fascinated by the variety and complexity of human love, but always retaining a sense of its intrinsic dignity ... he is both a discriminating and compassionate judge of his fellow man.

Saikaku's style, as allusive as it is witty, is a challenge that few translators have dared to face, and certainly never before with the success here. Accentuated by gorgeous 17th-century illustrations. Theodore de Bary's translation manages to recapture the heady flavor of the original in this sumptuous collection of romantic tales.

Clear-eyed glimpses of human behavior in the extremities of poverty, stupidity, greed, vanity... Story-telling of an unconventional sort, with most of the substance beneath the shining, enameled surface. --The New York Times Book Review

Widely acknowledged as the father of the Japanese short story, Ryunosuke Akutagawa remains one of the most influential Japanese writers of all time. Rashomon and Other Stories, a collection of his most celebrated work, resonates as strongly today as when it first published a century ago.

This volume includes:

• In a Grove: An iconic, contradictory tale of the murder of a samurai in a forest near Kyoto told through three varying accounts
• Rashomon: A masterless samurai contemplates following a life of crime as he encounters an old woman at the old Rashomon gate outside Kyoto
• Yam Gruel: A low-ranking court official laments his position all the while yearning for his favorite, yet humble, dish
• The Martyr: Set in Japan's Christian missionary era, a young boy is excommunicated for fathering an illegitimate child, but not all is as it seems
• Kesa and Morito: An adulterous couple plots to kill the woman's husband as the situation threatens to spin out of control
• The Dragon: A priest concocts a prank involving a dragon, but the tall tale begins to take on a life of its own

With a new foreward by noted Akutagawa scholar Seiji Lippit, this updated version of a classic collection is a an excellent, readable introduction to Japanese literature.

It's 1968. Himiko Hamilton struggles in a graceless marriage in a country that is not her own. Having come from Japan at the end of World War II and landed in a small Kansas town because of her marriage to an American soldier, she is at odds with the culture that she left behind and the one in which she is trying to survive.

In the midst of this turmoil is her beautiful mixed race teenage daughter Mieko Hamilton who is caught between her mother's Japanese world and that of her American father, walking a tightrope between a lissome old world and a new society that does not know what to make of her.

Four Japanese women - Setsuko Banks, Teruko MacKenzie, Atsuko Yamamoto, and Chizuye Juarez - come together to clean Himiko's house after her tragic suicide upsets the balance of life in their small Japanese immigrant community in the middle of the Kansas heartland. It is a ritual of honor for them as they share tea together for the very first time and try to purify Himiko's journey, and, in so doing, their own and that of Mieko as well.

The spirit of the dead woman returns as a ghostly ringmaster to force the women to come to terms with the disquieting tension of their lives and find common ground so that Himiko can escape from the limbo between life and death, and move on to the next world in peace--and indeed carve a pathway for their future passage.

The novel is based on Velina Hasu Houston's critically acclaimed play, Tea, which was the inspiration for The Joy Luck Club. Written seven years before the latter novel, Tea premiered Off-Broadway at Manhattan Theatre Club in 1987, two years prior to the The Joy Luck Club's publication. Take a journey into the lives of a group of Asian immigrant women that built transnational lives for them and their children.

Kyokutei Bakin's Nansō Satomi Hakkenden is one of the monuments of Japanese literature. This multigenerational samurai saga was one of the most popular and influential books of the nineteenth century and has been adapted many times into film, television, fiction, and comics.

His Master's Blade, the second part of Hakkenden, begins the story of the eight Dog Warriors created from the mystic union between Princess Fuse and the dog Yatsufusa and born into eight different samurai families in fifteenth-century Japan. The first is Inuzuka Shino, orphaned descendent of proud warriors. Left with nothing save a magical sword and the bead that marks him as a Dog Warrior, young Shino escapes his evil aunt and uncle and sets out to restore his family name. Unaware of their karmic bond, Shino and the other Dog Warriors are drawn into a world of vendettas and quests, gallants, and rogues, as each strives to learn his true nature and find his place in the eight-man fraternity.

Monsters, Animals, and Other Worlds is a collection of twenty-five medieval Japanese tales of border crossings and the fantastic, featuring demons, samurai, talking animals, amorous plants, and journeys to supernatural realms. The most comprehensive compendium of short medieval Japanese fiction in English, Monsters, Animals, and Other Worlds illuminates a rich world of literary, Buddhist, and visual culture largely unknown today outside of Japan.

These stories, called otogizōshi, or Muromachi tales (named after the Muromachi period, 1337 to 1573), date from approximately the fourteenth through seventeenth centuries. Often richly illustrated in a painted-scroll format, these vernacular stories frequently express Buddhist beliefs and provide the practical knowledge and moral education required to navigate medieval Japanese society. The otogizōshi represent a major turning point in the history of Japanese literature. They bring together many earlier types of narrative--court tales, military accounts, anecdotes, and stories about the divine origins of shrines and temples--joining book genres with parlor arts and the culture of itinerant storytellers and performers. The works presented here are organized into three thematically overlapping sections titled, Monsters, Warriors, and Journeys to Other Worlds, Buddhist Tales, and Interspecies Affairs. Each translation is prefaced by a short introduction, and the book features images from the original scroll paintings, illustrated manuscripts, and printed books.

Roger Pulvers' translations - with detailed notes and commentary - of Japan's greatest tanka poet, Takuboku Ishikawa, is now available here for the first time in this volume. Each tanka - a poem that in Japanese has thirty-one syllables - is a microcosm of the human psyche, revealing astounding insights into human behaviors, love (and hate) relationships, as well as social and political circumstances that presage our own times.

In his short life (1886-1912) Takuboku experienced many loves, a tumultuous marriage, fatherhood of three children, one of whom died shortly after birth, a brilliant career as a journalist and wildly popular poet, not to mention a political awakening that was leading him onto the path of the revolutionary.

In Old Love Letters, he writes ...

There are so many spelling mistakes

In those old love letters.

I never noticed until now.

In The New Year ...

Will this year be like all others

With my mind conjuring only things

That the world will not accept?

And in The Patient ...

One push of the door, a single step

And the corridor seems to stretch

As far as the eye can see.

Pulvers writes in The Illusions of Self ...

Takuboku puts every aspect of his character on the line for us to judge. Japan today craves writers who have the integrity of self-expression and the clarity of vision on their society that Takuboku expresses to us. In the mirror of his works, we are compelled to see our own face in a clear and honest light.

Of these translations, distinguished author and translator of American literature Motoyuki Shibata has written: These masterful translations will be a revelation for lovers of Takuboku's poetry while, at the same time, comprising a stylish introduction to those who wish to know it.

This collection of newly translated tales is selected from the most famous work in all of Japanese classical literature--the Konjaku Monogatari Shu.

This collection of traditional Japanese folklore is akin to the Canterbury Tales of Chaucer or Dante's Inferno--powerfully entertaining tales that reveal striking aspects of the cultural psychology, fantasy, and creativity of medieval Japan--tales that still resonate with modern Japanese readers today.

The ninety stories in this book are filled with keen psychological insights, wry sarcasm, and scarcely veiled criticisms of the clergy, nobles, and peasants alike--suggesting that there are, among all classes and peoples, similar failings of pride, vanity, superstition and greed--as well as aspirations toward higher moral goals.

This is the largest collection in English of the Konjaku Monogatari Shu tales ever published in one volume. It presents the low life and the high life, the humble and the devout, the profane flirting, farting and fornicating of everyday men and women, as well as their yearning for the wisdom, transcendence and compassion that are all part and parcel of our shared humanity.

The 90 Stories Include:

• The Grave of Chopsticks
• Robbers Come to a Temple and Steal Its Bell
• The Woman Fish Peddler at the Guardhouse
• Fish are Turned into the Lotus Sutra
• A Dragon is Caught by a Tengu Goblin
• The Monk Tojo Predicts the Fall of Shujaku Gate
• Wasps Attack a Spider in Revenge

This collection guides the reader through the complexity that is Japan. Although frequently misunderstood as a homogenous nation, Japan is a land of tremendous linguistic, geographical, and cultural diversity. Hino Keizo leads the reader through Tokyo's mazes in Jacob's Tokyo Ladder. Nakagami Kenji explores the ghostly, mythology-laden backwoods of Kumano. Atoda Takashi takes us to Kyoto to follow the mystery of a pair of shoes and discover the death of a stranger. The stories, like the country and the people, are beautiful and compelling. Let these literary masters be your guide -- from the beauty of northern Honshu through the hustle and bustle of Tokyo, to the many temples in Kyoto, through Osaka and the coastline of the Sea of Japan, and down to southern Kushu -- to a Japan that only the finest stories can reveal. Contributors include Hino Keizo, Maruya Saiichi, Inoue Yasushi, Oda Sakunosuke, Miyamoto Teru, Tada Chimako, Atoda Takashi, Nakagami Kenji, Mizukami Tsutomu, Kawabata Yasunari, Takahashi Mutsuo, and Shima Tsuyoshi.

I always called him Sensei. I shall therefore refer to him simply as Sensei, and not by his real name. It is not because I consider it more discreet, but it is because I find it more natural that I do so. Whenever the memory of him comes back to me now, I find that I think of him as Sensei still. And with pen in hand, I cannot bring myself to write of him in any other way. It was at Kamakura, during the summer holidays, that I first met Sensei. I was then a very young student. I went there at the insistence of a friend of mine, who had gone to Kamakura to swim. We were not together for long. It had taken me a few days to get together enough money to cover the necessary expenses, and it was only three days after my arrival that my friend received a telegram from home demanding his return. His mother, the telegram explained, was ill. My friend, however, did not believe this. For some time his parents had been trying to persuade him, much against his will, to marry a certain girl. According to our modern outlook, he was really too young to marry. Moreover, he was not in the least fond of the girl. It was in order to avoid an unpleasant situation that instead of going home, as he normally would have done, he had gone to the resort near Tokyo to spend his holidays. He showed me the telegram, and asked me what he should do. I did not know what to tell him. It was, however, clear that if his mother was truly ill, he should go home. And so he decided to leave after all. I, who had taken so much trouble to join my friend, was left alone.

Women authors have played an important role in Japanese literature for centuries, for example Murasaki Shikibu who wrote The Tale of Genji over 1000 years ago, which is considered to be the world's first novel. The last few decades have seen compelling works by authors such as Banana Yoshimoto, Yoko Ogawa, and Mieko Kawakami.

A few decades earlier we find another group of influential women authors, with Hayashi Fumiko--said to be one of the most important twentieth-century Japanese woman authors--a key representative of this group. Living a life of poverty until her breakthrough as an author, Hayashi Fumiko was known for her realistic depictions of urban working-class life, especially impoverished women. Her works typically address themes such as fate, troubled relationships, and the repercussions of war.

These nine stories are all connected in some way by the overarching theme of human relationships. Stories from a variety of genres are included: a tale of a woman's gradual downfall in the big city, a couple's struggle to find happiness, a fairy tale about an estranged crane family, a comical look at a traveler enamored by a maid, and a man wandering through the remnants of post-war Tokyo.

Spanning 60 years of 20th century Japanese literature, this anthology covers Japan's growth from a more traditional country into a distinctly modern one. Most of these stories had not been previously translated into English, opening up a vast new literary canon to Western readers. Award-winning translation Lane Dunlop introduces a cast of characters that stray beyond stereotypical images of bowing geisha and dark-suited businessmen.

The 14 stories include:

The Fox by Nagai Kafu

Flash Storm by Satomi Ton

One Woman and the War by Sakaguchi Ango

Borneo Diamond by Hayashi Fumiko

Invitation to Suicide by Watanabe Jun'ichi

Lovers of fiction and students of Japan are certain to find these stories absorbing, engaging and instructive.

Are you interested in discovering the rich world of Japanese myth and folklore? Have you always wanted to know more about the history of Japan, and the gods and goddesses, creatures, and myths that form part of its culture? If you've been looking for a book to expand your comprehension of this mythology while enriching yourself with its wisdom, then keep reading... this is the book for you!

Japanese mythology is an affluent culture that encapsulates the Shinto and Buddhist traditions. In addition to some core beliefs that influence society, it also contains spiritual and religious folklore that not only shapes Japanese culture, but also guides the community on how to approach the dynamics of life.

Through this comprehensive guide, not only will you travel back to ancient worlds and legendary characters, but you'll also uncover various creatures that encircle this unique world filled with stories about love, and sometimes betrayals, that remind us of our human nature, and even some extraordinary endings that will give you some more hope. By the time you come back to reality, you will be deeply intrigued but, most importantly, fulfilled. So, are you ready to embark on this adventure?

Inside Uncovering Japanese Mythology, you'll discover:

• A comprehensive introduction to Japanese Buddhism, its brief chronology, and its traditional social culture

• The creation of Takamagahara, and an all-inclusive list and history of the gods and goddesses who helped shape the history and reality of this sacred mythology

• Empowering stories of the heroes who interact with gods, spirits, and other extraordinary creatures

• The most important supernatural creatures who live close to you, and who you interact with across various phases of life

• More than ten 'never heard before' folktales written through the Monogatari art form, highlighting extraordinary stories of ordinary people who've had the most unusual encounters in human history

The interaction between modernization, important Japanese concepts, and the Japanese reverence for the sun, is everything you've been yearning to understand. Each chapter in this book will bring you a step closer to a fascinating and mysterious world and culture that has been in existence for over 2,000 years!

Are you ready to embrace a better understanding of life under the rising sun? Then read Uncovering Japanese Mythology now!