Best of
Japanese-Literature

2003

The Housekeeper and the Professor


Yōko Ogawa - 2003
    She is an astute young Housekeeper, with a ten-year-old son, who is hired to care for him. And every morning, as the Professor and the Housekeeper are introduced to each other anew, a strange and beautiful relationship blossoms between them. Though he cannot hold memories for long (his brain is like a tape that begins to erase itself every eighty minutes), the Professor’s mind is still alive with elegant equations from the past. And the numbers, in all of their articulate order, reveal a sheltering and poetic world to both the Housekeeper and her young son. The Professor is capable of discovering connections between the simplest of quantities--like the Housekeeper’s shoe size--and the universe at large, drawing their lives ever closer and more profoundly together, even as his memory slips away. The Housekeeper and the Professor is an enchanting story about what it means to live in the present, and about the curious equations that can create a family.

Breaking Into Japanese Literature: Seven Modern Classics in Parallel Text


Giles Murray - 2003
    Breaking into Japanese Literature is specially designed to help you bypass all the frustration and actually enjoy classics of Japanese literature.Breaking into Japanese Literature features seven graded stories covering a variety of genres: whether it's the spellbinding surrealism of Natsume Soseki's Ten Nights of Dreams, the humor of Akutagawa Ryunosuke's fable of temple life (The Nose), or the excitement of his historic thrillers (In a Grove and Rashomon), you are sure to find a story that appeals to you in this collection.The unique layout-with the original Japanese story in large print, an easy-to-follow English translation and a custom dictionary-was created for maximum clarity and ease of use. There's no need to spend time consulting reference books when everything you need to know is right there in front of your nose.To make Japanese literature fun, Breaking into Japanese Literature also has some unique extra features: mini-biographies to tell you about the authors' lives and works, individual story prefaces to alert you to related works of literature or film, and original illustrations to fire your imagination. Best of all, MP3 sound files of all the stories have been made available for FREE on the Internet.Breaking into Japanese Literature provides all the backup you need to break through to a new and undiscovered world-the world of great Japanese fiction. All the hard work has been taken care of so you can enjoy the pleasures of the mind. Why not take advantage?Learn o 50% of all common-use kanji covered o Kanji entry numbers given for follow-up study o Japanese + English translation + custom dictionary on the same page o Every single kanji word explainedListen o Free download of sound files from the NetLook o 7 original atmospheric illustrationsLink o Original stories for Kurosawa's Rashomon and DreamsAll the stories in this book are available on the Internet as MP3 sound files read by professional Japanese actors.For students who want to consolidate their understanding of kanji, the entry numbers for any of the 2,230 characters in The Kodansha Kanji Learner's Dictionary have been provided when those characters feature in Breaking into Japanese Literature. This makes cross-referencing a matter of seconds.

Awesome Nightfall: The Life, Times, and Poetry of Saigyo


William R. LaFleur - 2003
    It also offers a fascinating look into the world of Japanese Buddhism prior to the wholesale influence of Zen.

The Kamo Horse


I.J. Parker - 2003
    But the much beloved Lady Kesa is found murdered in her husband's bed and the "lucky" Wataru is the only suspect. Akitada uncovers a tragic web of court intrigue, broken promises, greed, and obsessive love.

Kyogyoshinsho: On Teaching, Practice, Faith, and Enlightenment


Shinran Shonin - 2003
    This work is a collection of 376 passages from 62 sutras, discourses, and commentaries, with Shinran's own notes and commentary, organized into a coherent and comprehensive explication of the Pure Land teaching.

Under an Imperial Sun: Japanese Colonial Literature of Taiwan and the South


Faye Yuan Kleeman - 2003
    Building on the most recent scholarship from Japan, Taiwan, and the West, it takes a cross-cultural, multidisciplinary, comparative approach that considers the views of both colonizer and colonized as expressed in travel accounts and popular writing as well as scholarly treatments of the area's cultures and customs. Readers are introduced to the work of Japanese writers Hayashi Fumiko and Nakajima Atsushi, who spent time in the colonial South, and expatriate Nishikawa Mitsuru, who was raised and educated in Taiwan and tried to capture the essence of Taiwanese culture in his fictional and ethnographic writing. The effects of colonial language policy on the multilingual environment of Taiwan are discussed, as well as the role of language as a tool of imperialism and as a vehicle through which Japan's southern subjects expressed their identity--one that bridged Taiwanese and Japanese views of self.

Project Kaisei


Michiro Naito - 2003
    We are talking about Japan. The novel, Project Kaisei, deals with complex issues surrounding the country of Japan, now facing not only the worst economic crisis since the end of WWII, but also growing military threats from North Korea and China. The story offers a glimpse of modern-day Japan, as seen from the eyes of a private investigator, and puts forth the real possibility of the resurgence of fascism in the island nation, resulting in nuclear armament. The readers will be treated to an accurate description of Japan and its people, rarely seen in the novels written by Western writers. The story contains no mighty super-hero or wisecracking anti-hero, just a lone private investigator trying to unearth the grand secret of Japan's nuclear weapons development project. His discovery puts his life in danger, as he becomes the target of a! ssassination.

AQUIRAX UNO POSTERS 1959‐1975―宇野亜喜良60年代ポスター集 [単行本]


Aquirax Uno - 2003
    Recently, design and illustration in the 1960s has increased the heat of re-evaluation of St. Uno. Publication had not been together as before, the ceiling of the balcony and Shuji Terayama ballet, classical, "featured story" kind poster collecting valuable, etc., is a luxurious collection of works of that era that contain air .Aquirax Uno, also known as Akira Uno (宇野 亜喜良 Uno Akira) (born March 13, 1934) is a Japanese graphic artist, illustrator and painter. His work is characterized by fantastic visuals, capricious and sensuous line flow, flamboyant (and occasionally grotesque) eroticism, and frequent use of collage and bright colors. Uno was prominently involved with the Japanese underground art of the 1960s–1970s, and is particularly notable for his collaborations with Shuji Terayama and his experimental theater Tenjo Sajiki. This book is a collection of his posters from that time.