Read Japanese Literature

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Read Japanese Literature@readjapaneseliterature· 15d

#womenintranslationmonth begins August 1, and RJL is psyched! Every day in August, we'll be posting a short bio of a Japanese woman writer* who takes up feminist themes in her stories. Stay tuned for an August episode on Japanese Women Writers.* readjapaneseliterature.com/Book+lists/J...

A list title card for "Japanese Feminist Writers". Photos are in columns. Right top to left bottom: Yumiko Kurahashi, Saou Ichikawa, Kaho Nakayama, Taeko Kono, Takako Takahashi, Harumi Setouchi, Nobuko Yoshiya, and Mieko Kawakami.

Read Japanese Literature@readjapaneseliterature· Jun 26

🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ Celebrate Pride and Anti-Prime Day with this list of Japanese Literature by LGBTQ+ Authors at @bookshop.org. bookshop.org/lists/japane...

The header from Read Japanese Literature's Bookshop.org page for Japanese Literature by LGBTQ+ Authors.

Covers on display include Our Colors by Gengoroh Tagame, Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima, This Monk Wears Heels by Kodo Nishimura, My Brother's Husband by Gengoroh Tagame, By Your Side by Erica Friedman, Twelve Views from a Distance by Mutsuo Takahashi, Our Dining Table by Mita Ari, and Solo Dance by Li Kotomi.

Read Japanese Literature@readjapaneseliterature· Jun 26

RJL Episode 50 is now available! - The history of new religions in Japan, inc Aum Shinrikyo - Haruki Murakami's Underground - 7 stories show Aum's continuing influence Translations by @brianbergstrom.bsky.social + @ginnytkmr.bsky.social readjapaneseliterature.com/Podcast/Epis...

Aum Anxiety in Japanese Literature
RJL Episode 50

This episode's artwork comes from the cover of the 2001 Vintage International printing of Underground. I haven't been able to identify a cover artist. It shows a map of the Tokyo subway superimposed on the musculature of a human torso.

Read Japanese Literature@readjapaneseliterature· Jun 24

Mutsuo Takahashi is a poet, essayist, and writer. He first wrote about his sexual attraction toward men in a volume of poetry he published in 1959. 1971's Poems of a Penisist, translated by Hiroaki Sato, is considered one of the most important compilations of homoerotic poetry of the 20th century.

A 2009 color photograph of Mutsuo Takahashi taken by translator Jeffrey Angles in Ashiya, Japan (via Wikimedia Commons). Takahashi is an attractive-looking Japanese man in his early seventies with gray hair and a thin, closely-shaved gray goatee. He's wearing a green, collared sweater under a heavy blue winter coat. He is looking into the camera.

Read Japanese Literature@readjapaneseliterature· Jun 24

The extended Patreon edit of RJL Episode 50 is almost finished. I'm pretty exited about this history of the Aum Affair, report on Underground, analysis of four stories that respond directly to Aum, and three other stories that *I* think show on-going suspicion of new religions. 1/8

An episode card for RJL Episode 50: Aum Anxiety in Japanese Fiction. The artwork comes from a cover of Haruki Murakami's Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche. (I could not identify the cover artist.)

Read Japanese Literature@readjapaneseliterature· Jun 23

Nobuko Yoshiya’s pioneering shojo stories about girls’ romantic friendships made her one of the richest people in contemporary Japan. She publicly shared a 50-year relationship with female math teacher Chiyo Monma. Yellow Rose, translated by Sarah Frederick, is her only work available in English.

A black-and-white photograph of Nobuko Yoshiya’s face and shoulders. She’s staring into the camera with an uncomfortable smile. She has short, bobbed hair, shaped eyebrows, and slightly crooked teeth. She’s wearing a rounded straw hat with a broad ribbon above the brim in a 1920s style.

Read Japanese Literature@readjapaneseliterature· Jun 22

Masako Togawa was a singer, actress, nightclub owner, and city planning panelist as well as a novelist and lesbian icon. At the height of her career, she was one of the most popular mystery writers in Japan. Her “Blue Room” nightclub was a center of lesbian culture in Tokyo for more than 40 years.

A 1964 black-and-white photograph of Masako Togawa. She's wearing a sharp-looking, short-sleeved women's button down with pockets over both breasts and smiling into the camera. She has full, styled eyebrows and magnificent hair in a short style framing her face. She's standing in front of a column and a tree.

Read Japanese Literature@readjapaneseliterature· Jun 21

Shinobu Orikuchi was a poet and scholar of Japanese classics who was relatively open about his attraction to other men. His long term partner, scholar Harumi Orikuchi, died during the Battle of Iwo Jima. He is best remembered as a poet, but also wrote The Book of the Dead (trans Jeffrey Angles).

A sepia-toned, 1940 photograph of Shinobu Orikuchi in a traditional Japanese room. He is wearing kimono and hakama, as well as a pair of thick, round framed glasses. His attention is focused on items on a kotatsu heated table in front of him.

Read Japanese Literature@readjapaneseliterature· Jun 20

Yukio Mishima was cagey about his sexuality in later life; his widow emphatically denied he had sex with men. There is, however, plenty of historical evidence that Mishima had male lovers. Confessions of a Mask (trans Meredith Weatherby) is his I-novel about coming to terms with same sex attraction.

A black-and-white photo of Yukio Mishima. He is wearing a tightly-patterned checked jacket with his hands shoved in his pockets, a white collared shirt, and a dark tie with lighter stripes. He is looking a the camera with an enigmatic expression on his face.

Read Japanese Literature@readjapaneseliterature· Jun 19

Li Kotomi is a lesbian. She has said, “The identity of being a member of the queer community is very important to me. It influences the way I think, the way I love, the way I see this world, and probably, the way I die.” She came out as transgender in 2024 after a long harassment campaign.

A confident-looking Taiwanese woman stares straight into the camera with a small smile on the steps of the New York Public Library. Her long, dark hair is cut across her brow line, and falls at her bust, where the sun gives it red-blond highlights. She's wearing a black top with pearl buttons. A light-pink handbag is slung over her left shoulder.

Read Japanese Literature@readjapaneseliterature· Jun 18

When he was in university, Kan Kikuchi famously confessed to a theft committed by male student he was in love with, resulting in his own expulsion. He is best known in Japan and the English-speaking world as the founder of the Akutagawa and Naoki Prizes.

A Japanese man in kimono and hakama sits and smokes a cigarette while staring into the distance. He’s sporting round, wire-rimmed glasses frames and a mustache.

Read Japanese Literature@readjapaneseliterature· Jun 17

Taruho Inagaki is best remembered for his stories about erotic and romantic relationships between adolescent boys. Today, his work is considered an important influence on the yaoi genre more frequently called “boy’s love” or “BL”.

A black-and-white photograph of Inagaki taken in his late 40s. He's wearing a baggy jacket, partially buttoned, a pair of baggy trousers, and sandals. He's also wearing a cap, jauntily askew, and dark, round glasses. In the background, you can see a quiet, Japanese city street with both Japanese- and "Western"-style buildings and a contemporary car.

Read Japanese Literature@readjapaneseliterature· Apr 24

Celebrate Indie Bookstore Day (Sat, 4/25) by visiting your favorite independent bookstore! If you can’t make it in person, consider supporting them online or supporting RJLthrough Bookshop. Free shipping all weekend (Sat-Sun)! Podcast reading list 👇 bookshop.org/lists/read-j...

Celebrate Indie Bookstore Day with Free Shopping on Bookshop.org

Read Japanese Literature@readjapaneseliterature· Apr 9

Happy birthday to anti-fascist, humanist writer Genzaburo Yoshino, born this day in 1899. His most famous work, the novel How Do You Live?, is as salient today as it has ever been. You can learn more about Yoshino and his novel with the RJL podcast. readjapaneseliterature.com/Podcast/Epis...

A clip from the cover of a Japanese edition of How Do You Live? featuring a young man in glasses and a casual kimono looking determinedly above the horizon. The clip includes the text "Japanese Writers Standing Up to the State" and "RJL Episode 43".

Read Japanese Literature@readjapaneseliterature· Dec 19

Oh snap! It's 100k downloads we're crossing today! Thanks for your support everyone!

Read Japanese Literature@readjapaneseliterature· Dec 14

The UK, bento-style cover of Uketsu’s Strange Pictures is more fun to look at, but I’ll own that the North American cover does its job better by actually representing the story (instead of “oooh! creepy Japan….”) and including translator Jim Rion’s name on the cover.

The North American cover of Strange Pictures is solid, lime green page with clips of the titular art work.

The UK cover of Strange Pictures has some GREAT colors, and shows a tentacle over sushi rice dripping blood—which looks cool but has nothing to do with the book.

Read Japanese Literature@readjapaneseliterature· Dec 14

Besides The Dilemmas of Working Women, I think my other two favorite covers were for two pieces of genre fiction. The cover of Yasuhiko Nishizawa’s The Man Who Died Seven Times (translated by Jesse Kirkwood) is both fun and on point.

The cover of Yasuhiko Nishizawa’s The Man Who Died Seven Times shows a sort of M C Escher universe of crime scenes in bold, primary colors.

Read Japanese Literature@readjapaneseliterature· Dec 14

I saw three other JLit covers on the list—two for the same book. They’re good covers, though not my faves of the year.

The UK cover of Natsuo Kirino’s Swalows (my fave of these three), shows an egg cracked open with the title and author name inside. I like the colors and the scalloped border. Hooray for naming the translator on the cover.

The cover for the collection of Yukio Misima stories, Voices of Our Fallen Heroes. Is a sort of stylized collage.

The North American cover of Natsuo Kirino’s Swallows shows the title spelled out in tiny rush eggs. It’s okay—at least highly topical for the novel! And the translator is named on the cover for the win!

Read Japanese Literature@readjapaneseliterature· Dec 14

Had to share the cover art 😅

The RJL episode cover art for episode 47, The Japanese Cell Phone Novel. It shows a piece of Shift_JIS art of a man flailing toward a Tokyo subway train. (TLDR—Shift_JIS art is like ASCII art, but includes characters used in Japanese writing like hiragana, katakana, and kanji.)

Read Japanese Literature@readjapaneseliterature· Dec 10

TIL the Japanese-language release of Napoleon Dynamite was titled "Bus Man" to try to capitalize on the success of Train Man—a story about a dork who nevertheless gets the girl.

The Japanese cover of Napoleon Dynamite, showing the dorky hero wearing an outdated suit and standing in front of a yellow American school bus covered in his bad doodles. The translated title reads "Bus Man". His name appears in his own sloppy (English-language) cursive on a clipping from a piece of lined paper taped over his leg.

Read Japanese Literature@readjapaneseliterature· Jul 11

Kanaya Brush is an "old fashioned brush shop"—in Asakusa, Tokyo instead of Kyoto. Kanaya Brush sells an unbelievable number of brush types—brushes for scrubbing, brushes for makeup, brushes for calligraphy, brushes for art, brushes for clothes... They even sell brushes for brushes!

A photograph of goods at Kanya Brush in Asakusa, Tokyo, Japan. Brooms of various sizes hang from wire racks on the wall. Scrub brushes fill baskets along a low shelf.

Read Japanese Literature@readjapaneseliterature· Jul 10

Also observe this collection of cat magazines at Rarasand, a delightful little coffee shop near Gotoku-ji. (They make small, cat-shaped, Acakes as well as a mean matcha latte—just in case you're visiting Tokyo anytime soon!) These zasshi are evidence that Japanese people read about cats, too.

A photograph of a stack of Japanese-language, cat-related magazines at a cafe near Gotokuji Temple. The titles are written in the Roman alphabet (romaji) and include Nyaera and Brutus. All the covers show close-up photographs of house cats.

Read Japanese Literature@readjapaneseliterature· Jul 10

It's true that cat books are over-represented in English translation. But it's also true that Japanese people love cats! Observe Gotoku-ji Temple, devoted to the maneki neko—the "welcome cat," known better as the "lucky cat" in English.

A photograph of maneki neko ("welcome cats" or "lucky cats") of different sizes from Gotoku-ji Temple near Tokyo, Japan. These traditional maneki neko are white cats with red collars and bells. The "whites" of their eyes are yellow and the insides of their ears are red. They have slightly-raised eyebrows, whiskers, and almost-neutral smiles. These particularly maneki neko range in size from the length of an adult's forearm to so small they can nestle between the ears of the largest cats. Some are new and clean; others show spots of mildew and/or chipped paint from exposure to the elements.

Read Japanese Literature@readjapaneseliterature· Jul 6

Okay. I know we love to hate these books, but… this seems *particularly* bad, no? Like… I can vaguely imagine some trying to make “ikagi” into a (likely Orientalized) philosophy, but MANEKI NEKO?! How the heck is “welcome cat” a way to live your life?!

A cover of a hardcover book:

Nobuo Suzuki
Forward by Héctor Garcia

Maneki Neko
The Japanese Secret to Good Luck and Happiness

Tuttle

The cover also features a fairly abstract drawing of what English-speakers often call a “lucky cat” but what more literally translates as a “welcome cat”—a cat waving at the onlooker. It’s surrounded by other Japan-associated imagery, four drawn koi and a number of drawn pink sakura (cherry) blossoms.

Read Japanese Literature@readjapaneseliterature· Jun 25

So… This is a fun example of literature in public life. These are characters from the 16th century CHINESE epic, Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en providing feedback on how to behave on the Toei Line in Tokyo. 1/5

A photograph of a public service announcement poster from the Tokyo subway based on the Chinese classic, Journey to the West.

It’s illustrated in light-hearted, comic style with soft tones highlighting important details.

Several figures appear
On the inside of a subway train.

The Monkey King offers his seat to an elderly lady.

She say, “Thanks!”

Monkey’s ill-mannered companion Pigsy, an anthropomorphic pig, sits by and doesn’t help.

A fourth figure stands benevolently at the left, holding up
His hand in blessing. I *believe* he is dressed like a Buddhist monk. He is wearing a white robe, covered in a gold outer layer, as well as leggings and sandals. He carries a staff with three rings affixed. Perhaps it’s the monk Tang Sanzang from Journey to the West?

A kappa, hangs out in the lower right, otherwise unrelated to the scene. He is green and almost duck-like, with an indentation on the top of his head, surrounded by a rim of straight black hair. He is also wearing a necklace of what appear to be human skulls. He holds up his hand like he’s offering a pointer. He says, “Let’s help each other.”

(Happy to receive corrections.)

Read Japanese Literature@readjapaneseliterature· Jun 24

There is a character in Kotaro Isaka’s Bullet Train (trans Malissa) who loves world of Thomas the Train. Someone asked if that’s a localization—does the character actually like a Japanese kids’ show? I didn’t think so then. And here’s a Thomas ad that takes up three walls of a Tokyo subway car!

A badly-taken photo of an ad from the Tokyo subway that highlights the anthropomorphic train Gordon from the British TV show Thomas and Friends—“Gordon: The Big Express Engine”.

Read Japanese Literature@readjapaneseliterature· Jun 13

Celebrate LGBTQ+ Pride Month with RJL. RJL has a 2-part series for you about LGBTQ+ Stories from Japan. readjapaneseliterature.com/2024/10/30/e...

A collage of six images in the shape of a flower. In the center, “LGBTQ+ Stories from Japan.”
Across the bottom, “RJL Episodes 39-40.”

This episode’s artwork comes from multiple sources. Clockwise from “1:00”:

A tryst between a samurai and his wakashu in a painting on silk by Issho Miyagawa, cs. 1750. (via Wikimedia Commons)

The cover of Hana Monogatari, an edition of Nobuko Yoshiya’s early stories. (via HistoryIsGayPodcast.com)

A photograph self-portrait of Yukio Mishima posing as Saint Sebastian. (widely available online)

A print illustration from Nanshoku Yamaji no Tsuyu of a man kissing his young, male lover—presumably a kabuki actor—by Sukenobu Nishikawa from 1715. (via Timelessmoon)

“Butterfly Hunting”, an illustration by Shigeru Shudo of a Class S story from 1926. (via Wikimedia Commons)

An unattributed January 1928 issue of the Japanese journal Hentai Shiryo (via Wikimedia Commons). (The same illustration appears on the cover of Mark McLelland’s Queer Japan from the Pacific War to the Internet Age.)

Read Japanese Literature@readjapaneseliterature· Mar 17

RJL has received more than 75,000 episode downloads! Thank you for your support!

Read Japanese Literature@readjapaneseliterature· Feb 22

Bonus pic of the official RJL cat that time she got herself stuck at the bottom of the collapsible laundry hamper…

A brown tabby cat with green looks up from the bottom of a collapsible white and black striped Ikea laundry hamper. She doesn’t seem bothered by the fact she doesn’t know how to remove herself from the laundry hamper.

Read Japanese Literature@readjapaneseliterature· Dec 13

Thank you so much for your support this year! Year over year, RJL received 6k+ more downloads than 2023! We missed the top 10% of podcasts by just over 20 downloads an episode! Very proud of what RJL has accomplished and looking forward to more in 2025. I couldn't do it without you.