The people were abused by the nobility, while the armed Buddhist monks terrorized court and commoner alike. In despair, the Emperor called upon the Heike and Genji clans to quell civil disturbances. Although the clans succeeded, they quarreled over the spoils of war and plunged the country into a century of warfare.This novel describes the rise to power of Kiyomori of the Heike clan during this turbulent time. From a youth sunk in poverty, Kiyomori eventually rose to become the Emperor's Chief Councillor. Although he was a gentle, enlightened man, he left a trail of bloodshed and ruin in his wake. The strange twists of Kiyomori's fate are the core of this epic novel.The Heike Story is a modern translation of a Japanese classic. Its exotic atmosphere, narrative power, pageantry, and poetry will enthrall English readers and provide an entertaining introduction to an important source of Japanese culture.

    Miyazawa Kenji: Selections collects a wide range of his poetry and provides an excellent introduction to his life and work. Miyazawa was a teacher of agriculture by profession and largely unknown as a poet until after his death. Since then his work has increasingly attracted a devoted following, especially among ecologists, Buddhists, and the literary avant-garde. This volume includes poems translated by Gary Snyder, who was the first to translate a substantial body of Miyazawa’s work into English. Hiroaki Sato’s own superb translations, many never before published, demonstrate his deep familiarity with Miyazawa’s poetry. His remarkable introduction considers the poet’s significance and suggests ways for contemporary readers to approach his work. It further places developments in Japanese poetry into a global context during the first decades of the twentieth century. In addition the book features a Foreword by the poet Geoffrey O’Brien and essays by Tanikawa Shuntaro, Yoshimasu Gozo, and Michael O’Brien.

    When her mother-in-law suddenly dies of a stroke, Akiko becomes the sole caregiver for her selfish father-in-law Shegezo.The Twilight Years raises important issues about the quality of life at the end of life, caregiving for the old, and the dilemma of women who have both career and family obligations.

     The invasion of Guadalcanal was a long, cruel holding operation fought with too little equipment and support, not enough food and ammunition, and too few men. The marines on the island were subjected to bombing raids and strafing by Japanese aircraft, bombardment by battleships, cruisers, destroyers, submarines, and land artillery, as well as being continually attacked by Japanese tanks and infantry. For five long months they were attacked day and night before being eventually relieved by Army units. Who were these men who faced overwhelming odds? And how did they survive? T. Grady Gallant, who fought at Guadalcanal himself, answers these questions in his brilliant book On Valor’s Side Gallant’s account begins with an account of the grueling training that he and his fellow marines received in places such as Parris Island, before they undertook last minute preparations in New Zealand and made the journey towards Guadalcanal. It is a fascinating work that gives an eyewitness view of one of the most ferocious encounters that the United States Marines had to face through the course of the Second World War. “recreates the real-life training, fighting and comradeship of men at arms, from North Carolina to Guadalcanal.” — Kirkus Review “A great book” — Leon Uris T. Grady Gallant was a journalist, editor, columnist, author and editor. He served as a Sergeant of Special Weapons in the U.S. 1st marine Division, Fleet Marine Force 1941-1945, in the assault at Guadalcanal, and served a second tour with the 4th marine Division, Fleet Marine Force and was in the assault and Battle of Iwo Jima during World War II. His book On Valor’s Side was first published in 1963 and he passed away in 2009.

    Peopled with creatures from Japanese folklore, Kappland serves as a vehicle for the humorous examination of the moral foibles of Japanese society in the early 20th century.

    They subtly merge the world of reason with the realm of the uncanny and exemplify the period's fascination with the strange and the grotesque. They were also the inspiration for Mizoguchi Kenji's brilliant 1953 film Ugetsu.The title Ugetsu monogatari (literally "rain-moon tales") alludes to the belief that mysterious beings appear on cloudy, rainy nights and in mornings with a lingering moon. In "Shiramine," the vengeful ghost of the former emperor Sutoku reassumes the role of king; in "The Chrysanthemum Vow," a faithful revenant fulfills a promise; "The Kibitsu Cauldron" tells a tale of spirit possession; and in "The Carp of My Dreams," a man straddles the boundaries between human and animal and between the waking world and the world of dreams. The remaining stories feature demons, fiends, goblins, strange dreams, and other manifestations beyond all logic and common sense.The eerie beauty of this masterpiece owes to Akinari's masterful combination of words and phrases from Japanese classics with creatures from Chinese and Japanese fiction and lore. Along with The Tale of Genji and The Tales of the Heike, Tales of Moonlight and Rain has become a timeless work of great significance. This new translation, by a noted translator and scholar, skillfully maintains the allure and complexity of Akinari's original prose.

    It lived alongside the present, in dark corners, and in the shadows. In these tales, award-winning author Miyuki Miyabe explores the ghosts of Japan, and the spaces of the living world they inhabit. Written with a journalistic eye and a fantasist’s heart Apparitions bring the restless dead, and those who encounter them, to life.

    The 1,000 poems (out of a total of more than 4,500) in this famous selection were chosen by a distinguished scholarly committee based on their poetic excellence, their role in revealing the Japanese national spirit and character, and their cultural and historical significance. The acclaimed translations artfully preserve the simplicity and direct quality of the originals, and encompass an enormous range of human emotions and experiences. Text is in English only

    An intricate fusion of music, dance, mask, costume and language, the dramas address many subjects, but the idea of form is more central than meaning and their structure is always ritualized. Selected for their literary merit, the twenty-four plays in this volume dramatize such ideas as the relationship between men and the gods, brother and sister, parent and child, lover and beloved, and the power of greed and desire. Revered in Japan as a cultural treasure, the spiritual and sensuous beauty of these works has been a profound influence for English-speaking artists including W. B. Yeats, Ezra Pound and Benjamin Britten.

    I wanted to see in what ratios people were wearing such masks. I was trying to determine, consciously and unconsciously, what people do in response. So, among people walking along the roadway, and people on motorbikes, I saw no one with masks. Even among the official crossing guards outfitted with yellow flags and banners, none. All showed bright and calm. What was I hoping for exactly? The guilty conscience again. But then it was time for school to start. We began to see groups of kids on their way to school. They were wearing masks.""Horses, Horses, in the End the Light Remains Pure" is a multifaceted literary response to the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown that devastated northeast Japan on March 11, 2011. The novel is narrated by Hideo Furukawa, who travels back to his childhood home near Fukushima after 3/11 to reconnect with a place that is now doubly alien. His ruminations conjure the region's storied past, particularly its thousand-year history of horses, humans, and the struggle with a rugged terrain. Standing in the morning light, these horses also tell their stories, heightening the sense of liberation, chaos, and loss that accompanies Furukawa's rich recollections. A fusion of fiction, history, and memoir, this book plays with form and feeling in ways reminiscent of Vladimir Nabokov's "Speak, Memory" and W. G. Sebald's "The Rings of Saturn" yet draws its own, unforgettable portrait of personal and cultural dislocation.

    During his owner's life Hachiko saw him off from the front door and greeted him at the end of the day at the nearby Shibuya Station. The pair continued their daily routine until May 1925 when Professor Ueno didn't return on the usual train one evening. The professor had suffered a stroke at the university that day. He died and never returned to the station where his friend was waiting.Hachiko was given away after his master's death but he routinely escaped, showing up again and again at his old home. After some time, Hachiko realized that Professor Ueno no longer lived at the house. So he went to look for his master at the train station where he had accompanied him so many times before. Each day, Hachiko waited for Professor Ueno to return. And each day he didn't see his friend among the commuters at the station.Hachiko became a permanent fixture at the train station, which eventually attracted the attention of commuters. Many of the people who frequented the Shibuya train station had seen Hachiko and Professor Ueno together each day. Realizing that Hachiko waited in vigil for his dead master, their hearts were touched. They brought Hachiko treats and food to nourish him during his wait. This continued for 10 years, with Hachiko appearing only in the evening, precisely when the train was due at the station.Hachiko: The True Story of the Royal Dogs of Japan and One Faithful Akita is Hachiko's story, as well as an informative look at dog culture in Japan and the history and tradition of the Akita-ken, one of the most ancient, beloved, and faithful dog breeds ever.

    As they walk through the city, Kandagawa relives moments of their relationship and questions their decision to be apart. Lose Your Private Life Waterumi Yano is a successful young novelist, her books winning prestigious prizes and the hearts of readers all over the world. However, Waterumi is herself a fiction, a penname for the 28 year old Terumi Yano, a woman struggling to hold on to her identity as she is increasingly recognized by her loved ones as Waterumi.A GenealogyA fable-like retelling which broadly sketches the evolution of mankind. Despite fictional / magical retellings ('The frog gave birth to the dinosaur'), the narrative begins with of a rock and ending with Kandagawa, sitting in a bath in her apartment, remembering how, in the past, she used to be a fish. Though the narrative appears to be summarizing thousands of years' worth of development, Kandagawa's closing memory of being a fish seems to imply that the whole evolution has simply taken place in the time it has taken for us to read the short story (which, because this evolution exists only as the short story, it technically has). Or, we are left wondering if Kandagawa is accessing a kind of collective memory.Translated by Polly Barton. Design by Nigel Aono-Billson.

    Gothic Tales makes available for the first time a collection of stories by this highly influential writer, whose decadent romanticism led him to envision an idiosyncratic world--a fictive purgatory --precious and bizarre though always genuine despite its melodramatic formality.The four stories presented here are among Kyoka's best-known works. They are drawn from four stages of the author's development, from the conceptual novels of 1895 to the fragmented romanticism of his mature work. In the way of introduction, Inouye presents a clear analysis of Kyoka's problematic stature as a great gothic writer and emphasizes the importance of Kyoka's work to the present reevaluation of literary history in general and modern Japanese literature in particular. The extensive notes that follow the translation serve as an intelligent guide for the reader, supplying details about each of the stories and how they fit into the pattern of mythic development that allowed Kyoka to deal with his fears in a way that sustained his life and, as Mishima Yukio put it, pushed the Japanese language to its highest potential.

    Gripping, action-packed, authentic, and filled with larger-than-life men and women of the Greatest Generation, CRASH DIVE puts you aboard a submarine during the war. You'll stand alongside Charlie as he proves himself time and again by keeping his wits and being decisive in crisis, though each encounter leaves him more heavily scarred for it. You'll attack a convoy in a daring night surface attack, emerge in a sea fog to ambush a battle group, and charge the battleship Yamato during the decisive Battle of Leyte Gulf. All the while, you'll live with the crew in the cramped, noisy, and challenging machine that was a diesel-electric submarine. CRASH DIVE: The Complete Series puts together for the first time all six episodes in Craig DiLouie's highly acclaimed historical military fiction series: CRASH DIVE, SILENT RUNNING, BATTLE STATIONS, CONTACT!, HARA-KIRI, and OVER THE HILL.

    Rescuing vivid, often wrenching accounts of peasants, miners, textile workers, rebels, and prostitutes, he forces us to see Japan's “modern century” (from the beginnings of contact with the West to defeat in World War II) through fresh eyes. In doing so, he presents a formidable challenge to the success story of Japan's “economic miracle.”Starting with the Meiji restoration of 1868, Professor Hane shows how modernization actually widened the gulf, economically and socially, between the rich and the poor, between the mo-bo and the mo-ga (“modern boy” and “modern girl”) of the cities and their farm counterparts. He laces his scholarly narrative with sharply etched individual accounts that make us see what Japan looked like from the bottom up. We learn what the back-breaking labor of a typical farm family was like; what it was like for poverty-stricken parents to sell their daughters into Japan’s new mills, factories, and brothels; what it was to her in rural areas scourged by famine; to be on strike in a company town; in revolt in the countryside; or conscripted into the army.Professor Hane presents us with a unique people’s history of a hitherto unknown Japan, a story as powerful and grim as any ever told by a Mayhew or a Dickens about England’s Industrial Revolution.—from the back cover of the bookIncludes Notes, and an Index