It came to its real climax with the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate in 1868, the event which forms the centerpiece of this book. The Meiji Restoration -- as history calls it -- toppled the shogunate, and brought a seventeen-year-old boy emperor back from the secluded Imperial Palace in Kyoto to preside over what amounted to a political and cultural revolution. With this, Japan's extraordinary self-modernization began in earnest. Coming to power just as the Tokugawa regime was suffering the worst military defeat in its history, Yoshinobu strongly suspected that the rule of the Tokugawas -- the third and longest lived of Japan's three warrior governments - was swiftly becoming an anachronism. During a year of frenetic activity, he overhauled the military systems, reorganized the civil administration, promoted industrial development, and expanded foreign intercourse, with the farsighted aim of creating a unified Japan. Alarmed by these reforms, pro-imperial interests moved against him, precipitating the Boshin Civil War and the final defeat of the shogunal armies. To the surprise of his enemies, Yoshinobu capitulated. It was this surrender of authority at a crucial point that made the transfer of sovereignty relatively peaceful. He then retired to Mito and lived quietly for the rest of his life, studying the new art of photography. Ennobled a prince in the new European-style nobility of the Meiji era, he died in 1913.

    This is a short collection of poetry from the pen and mind of Nyles Adams, most of which originally appeared in other Alexandria House works.Read, absorb and snap your fingers if you are so inclined.

    Unspeakable things have happened to his mother and his mentally disabled 12-year-old brother. As Takeru gets to know Mitsuko, his new caretaker, and Saki, his spunky neighbor, he meets more of his mother's old friends, discovering her history and confronting the terrible acts that have left him alone. All the while he begins to see a strange figure that calls himself Bunji—the same name of a delicate young boy who mysteriously vanished one day on the village's coastline at Lion's Cross Point.At once the moving tale of a young boy forced to confront demons well beyond his age, a sensitive portrayal of a child's point of view, and a spooky Japanese ghost story, Lion's Cross Point is gripping and poignant. Acts of heartless brutality mix with surprising moments of pure kindness, creating this utterly truthful tale of an unforgettable young boy.

    After all, I take notes every day, and I read all kinds of books. But now, there's penguins in my town! I know it has something to do with that girl at the dentist and her weird powers, so I'm gonna get to the bottom of it...

    Not the typical romantic fantasies so often seen in Japanese writing, filled with water sprites and vengeful ghosts, these stories are a mixture of fantastic allegory, slightly skewed fables, and affecting romantic tales. Revealing the wide range of Dazai's imaginative powers, they also give a glimpse of his humane and idealistic side. From the title story, about an impoverished, henpecked scholar who is transformed by the love of a voluptuous bird, to "The Chrysanthemum Spirit," about a passionate gardener who meets a brother and sister with extraordinary powers, Dazai creates a world of fantasy and romance that is infused with his own psychological concerns. Many readers may recall the poignancy of Oscar Wilde's The Happy Prince or Han Christian Andersen. The collection is capped by two delightful stories-within-a-story, in which the assorted members of a quirky family compose alternate episodes of a slightly gothic romance with hints of Poe and Saki (in "On Love and Beauty") and a wildly elaborate retelling of Rapunzel that is engaging, horrifying, and touching by turns (in "Lanterns of Romance"). All in all, these warm, inventive, and life-affirming stories will strike a deep, satisfying chord in many readers.

    In 2005 it won the prestigious Naoki Prize, awarded semiannually for the best work of popular fiction by an established writer.Sayoko, a thirty-five-year-old homemaker with a three-year-old child, begins working for Aoi, a free-spirited, single career woman her own age who runs a travel agency-housekeeping business. Timid and unable to connect with other mothers in her neighborhood, Sayoko finds herself drawn to Aoi's independent lifestyle and easygoing personality. The two hit it off from the start, beginning a friendship that is for Sayoko also a reaffirmation of what living is about.Aoi, meanwhile, has not always been the self-confident person she appears to be. Severe classroom bullying in junior high had forced her to change schools, uprooting her and her family to the countryside; and at her new school, she was so afraid of again becoming the object of her classmates' cruelties that she spent most of her time steering clear of those around her.The present-day friendship between Sayoko and Aoi on the one hand, and Aoi's painful high school past on the other, form a gripping two-tier narrative that converges in the final chapter. The book touches on a broad range of issues of concern to women today, from marriage and childrearing to being single and working for oneself. It is a universal story about both the fear and the joy of opening up to others.

    ‘Hiraeth - A home that never was’ by Mansi Narula Kashyap is a collection of poetry and prose about a home that the author believes does not exist in the real world but still cast a shadow or instil a sense of belongingness towards the same. Each poem will enhance the reader’s imagination, coaxing them to understand the depth of a home that never was.“For just a moment, my heart believes.The home that never was,Still makes me homesick.I do not even remember when we started building it brick by brick?The thieves have come and robbed us of all that we had,Trust, loyalty and love are now just in twisted weaves.”

    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.

    Written in 1965, this prize-winning work of historical fiction presents an alternative account of an imperial love affair narrated in the eleventh-century romance A Tale of Flowering Fortunes (Eiga monogatari). Both stories are set in the Heian court of the emperor Ichijo (980-1011) and tell of the ill-fated love between the emperor and his first consort, Teishi, and of the political rivalries that threaten to divide them. While the earlier work can be viewed largely as a panegyric to the all-powerful regent Fujiwara no Michinaga, Enchi's account emphasizes Teishi's nobility and devotion to the emperor and celebrates her moral victory over the regent, who conspired to divert the emperor's attentions toward his own daughter, Shoshi.The narrative of A Tale of False Fortunes is built around a fictitious historical document, which is so well crafted that it was at first believed to be an actual document of the Heian period. Throughout Enchi's innovation and skill are evident as she alternates between modern and classical Japanese, interjecting her own commentary and extracts from A Tale of Flowering Fortunes, to impress upon the reader the authenticity of the tale presented within the novel.

    Their collaboration has rendered translations both precise and sublime, and their selection, which span 1,500 years, from the early T’ang dynasty to the present day, includes many poems that have never before been translated into English. Stryk and Ikemoto offer us Zen poetry in all its diversity: Chinese poems of enlightenment and death, poems of the Japanese masters, many haiku — the quintessential Zen art — and an impressive selection of poems by Shinkichi Takahashi, Japan’s greatest contemporary Zen poet. With Zen Poetry, Lucien Stryk and Takashi Ikemoto have graced us with a compellingly beautiful collection, which in their translations is pure literary pleasure, illuminating the world vision to which these poems give permanent expression.

    Emi, a gifted koto player, cherishes Taku's doting love. But the couple can't conceive, and Taku's work takes him away more and more often. When she finally gives birth to a healthy son, Emi dares hope that the preternaturally intelligent Jun will help mend the rift in her marriage. That is, until she meets Hana, an extraordinarily beautiful and wicked geisha, and discovers a betrayal so devastating it would take the aid of eight million gods and demons-the number of deities in the Japanese pantheon-to overcome.

    An artist's quest for growth from one of the world's greatest stylists. Nakagi, an ex-con painter who has sequestered hismself in a mountain cabin, is trying to elevate his art. The only thing breakin his solitude are the visits of two women: an art dealer who wants him to produce the sort of paintings that she would like to buy from him, and a young aspiring, and soulful apprentice. When Nakagi welcomes an escaped felon into the emotionally fraught fold, and begins to teach him to pain well. Winter Sleep awakens to a literally incendiary climax.

    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.

    Here are myths of gods, heroes and warriors; legends of Buddha, and of the goddess Benten and the god Daikoku; tales of the sea and of Mount Fuji; accounts of superstitions and supernatural beings; observations on the spiritual properties of fans, flowers, dolls and butterflies and much more.The collection begins with the early myths of Japan, which the author describes as "quaint, beautiful, quasi-humorous." These are followed by legends celebrating early heroes and warriors, and the earliest examples of the Japanese romance, "The Bamboo-Cutter and the Moon-Maiden." Many of the legends that follow reflect a poetic love of beauty and of nature. But as the author points out, "there is plenty of crude realism in Japanese legend. We are repelled by the Thunder God's favorite repast, amazed by the magical power of foxes and cats; and the story of 'Hōïchi-the-Earless' and of the corpse-eating priest afford striking examples of the combination of the weird and the horrible."Thirty-two full-page illustrations offer compelling images of Buddha and the Dragon; A Kakemono Ghost; The Jelly-Fish and the Monkey; The Firefly Battle; Tokoyo and the Sea Serpent; Sengen, the Goddess of Mount Fuji; and other subjects of these timeless myths. In addition, the author has included several invaluable appendixes that offer a helpful note on Japanese poetry, a listing of gods and goddesses, a genealogy of The Age of the Gods, and an index of poetical quotations.

    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.