ELLA KELLEHER WRITES (latest in her review series of new Japanese novels) — Loneliness, a newly standardized leitmotif in Japanese literature, is the driving force behind much of modern Japan’s social dilemmas and Natsuko Imamura’s unnerving novel. Beyond that, the fear over taking risks and forging new relationships frames the narrative…
ANGELINE KEK WRITES — Motherhood — perhaps the most intimate and universal experience to exist in the universe. Nothing organic can start without it, nothing is left untouched by it. Motherhood transcends all differences. Yet, no singular being’s journey with it is ever quite the same as the next. At…
ELLA KELLEHER WRITES (latest in her review series of new Japanese novels) – People often dwell on the existential concept of death and what it means to die. But what does it mean to be born? To be alive? For the beautiful, talented, and wealthy, life would seem to be a cornucopia of joyous excitement and…
ANDREA PLATE WRITES — Robert McDonald, US Secretary of Veterans Affairs under President Obama, struck deep into the hearts of mental healthcare workers at the West Los Angeles Department of Veterans Affairs, albeit unintentionally, when he told them this: The effects of any war can be felt forty years after…
ELLA KELLEHER WRITES (latest in her review series of new Japanese books) – Are you feeling disillusioned with the relentless hustle and colorless monotony of metropolis living? Do you feel like another cog in the capitalist machine? Do you crave a simpler life? Consider adopting and adhering to the daily…
ANGELINE KEK WRITES — To read The Sunflower Cast A Spell To Save Us From The Void by Jackie Wang is to return to familiarity delivered through mystifying means. Within the surreal landscapes that are conjured up by the speaker, we are shown a world largely fabricated by an unhinged…
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…
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…
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…
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.…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
