ELLA KELLEHER WRITES (latest in her review series of new Japanese books) – How does a global war affect regular people caught in its wake of devastation? How long do those effects linger on and how should a society react to them? Shaw Kuzki’s heart-wrenching tale, Soul Lanterns (2021), aims…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: SOUL LANTERNS (2021) BY SHAW KUZKI
ELLA KELLEHER WRITES (latest in her review series of great new books from Japan) – Many are already well aware of love’s fragility, but At the End of the Matinee (2021) proves that love can also be incredibly resilient. Based on a true story, Keiichiro Hirano’s book depicts an agonizing…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: AT THE END OF THE MATINEE (2021) BY KEIICHIRO HIRANO
ELLA KELLEHER WRITES (latest in her review series of new Japanese books) – This imaginative and captivatingly ambiguous recent release by Murakami reads like a game of two truths and a lie (in this case, seven truths and a lie). First Person Singular (2021) presents its audience with eight entrancing…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: FIRST PERSON SINGULAR (2021) by HARUKI MURAKAMI
ELLA KELLEHER WRITES (latest in her review series of new Japanese books) — Adolescence in Astral Season, Beastly Season (2020) is a frightening and tragic nightmare that haunts a person endlessly. The teenage mind is pried apart in Tahi Saihate’s unusual coming-of-age story to reveal a deep-seated psychology of obsession.…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: ASTRAL SEASON, BEASTLY SEASON BY TAHI SAIHATE
ELLA KELLEHER WRITES (in the third of three reviews of new Japanese books) – Oyamada’s protagonist is not much different from Alice who fell down the rabbit hole. As Asahi descends deeper down the chasm, reality itself tears at the seams and breaks open, folding in all around her. The…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: THE HOLE BY HIROKO OYAMADA
ELLA KELLEHER WRITES (in the second of three reviews of new Japanese books) – As you read this thoroughly entertaining yet gruesome tale, you will wonder, is this narrator mentally ill? Or does the problem lie in an evil society where humans are reduced to being baby-making, money-making cogs in…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: EARTHLINGS BY SAYAKA MURATA
ELLA KELLEHER WRITES (in the first of three reviews of new Japanese books) — The title of the novel itself poses a compelling question: does pregnancy and what comes with it (having both breasts and eggs) determine the destiny of the female body? Breasts and Eggs (2020) tells the story…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: BREASTS AND EGGS BY MIEKO KAWAKAMI
REI KITAGAWA WRITES – Japan Rearmed, authored by the renowned Sheila A. Smith (and recently published by Harvard University Press), offers an extensive and intimate account of U.S.-Japan relations, arguing that the Japanese government is reconsidering its dependence on the United States amidst increasing threats from North Korean missiles and…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: THE POLITICS OF JAPAN REARMED
ANDREA PLATE WRITES — This year, the best-selling North Korean novel Friend was translated into English and approved for publication in the US by the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea – a first in that nation’s history. Immanuel Kim, 42, professor of Korean Literature and Culture Studies at George…
Full Article KOREA: ARE WOMEN’S RIGHTS, NORTH AND SOUTH, AN OPEN BOOK ON THE LITERARY LANDSCAPE?
ANDREA PLATE WRITES — Lizzie Buehler, 25, raised in Texas, is the translator of The Disaster Tourist, South Korean author Yun Ko-eun’s first novel to be translated into English and published in the US recently. This truly original book is about international tourists who thrive on visiting world-famous tragic sites…
Full Article SOUTH KOREA: THE ACCIDENTAL TRANSLATOR
(This is the eighth in a series on modern Korean literature newly published in superb English translations.) ANDREA PLATE WRITES – Who could possibly find humor in severed heads, natural disasters and mass graves? South Korean author Yun Ko Eun does, as will any reader of the English language version…
Full Article KOREAN FEMINISTS IN TRANSLATION: GENIUS DISASTER TOURIST GUIDE
ANDREA PLATE WRITES — Imagine watching your mother and grandmother being stabbed to death in a random attack on Christmas Eve, and showing no emotion. This is Yunjae, the protagonist of Sohn Won-Pyung’s Almond (HarperVia), first published in 2017 and translated into English this May. Why the title Almond? First, because the human brain…
Full Article SOUTH KOREA: BIG GAINS AND NOTHING LOST IN TRANSLATION
(This is the sixth in an original series about new wave feminist writers in Korea whose work has started to reach English language readers via superb translations.) ANDREA PLATE WRITES — Imagine this book as a movie: “Silence of the Lambs” meets “Thelma and Louise.” The Law of Lines (Arcade…
Full Article SOUTH KOREA: THE LAW OF LINES – THEY’RE MADE TO BE CROSSED
(This is the fifth in an original series about new wave feminist writers in Korea whose work has started to reach English language readers via superb translations.) ANDREA PLATE WRITES — Thirty-eight years. That’s how long it took for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to approve, for publication in…
Full Article DIVORCE, NORTH KOREAN STYLE
(This is the fourth in an original series about new wave feminist writers in Korea whose work has started to reach English language readers via superb translations.) ANDREA PLATE WRITES — “Fitting into middle class society is getting harder and harder for the younger generation.” So says Kim Sagwa, author…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: A SOUTH KOREAN AUTHOR TELLS A UNIVERSAL TALE
ASSOCIATE EDITOR CAMILLE BRYAN WRITES — A true revolutionary dedicated to avenging colonial invasions, Chairman Mao would delight in seeing today’s uprising in the West: the burning courthouses, destroyed storefronts, street rampages — all in demand that the world hear those formerly silenced. In his own country, the Chairman legitimized…
Full Article LOVELL IN ‘MAOISM’: MAO’S INFLUENCE THEN AND NOW