Japanese Literature

This book collects two novellas by the noted Japanese painter: "Family Business" and "1,001 Pillars of Flame." In the first, Megumi-like the author, a long-time resident of the United States-pays a visit to her now eighty-seven-year-old mother in Japan. After so many years living abroad, Megumi simply can't understand contemporary Japan, and when her nephew runs away from home, and her elderly mother gives chase, Megumi finds herself having to relearn Japanese survival skills in an effort to bring them home safely. In "1,001 Pillars of Fire," another Japanese-American woman, Yu, has been living in California for decades-which makes it all the more painful that she's just as subject to discrimination now as ever. When, in the wake of the Rodney King trial, LA's African-American population begins to riot, Yu learns just how much damage exclusion can do-finding it even within her own family.

Otohiko Kaga's Marshland is an epic novel on a Tolstoyan scale, running from the pre-World War II period to the turbulence of 1960s Japan. At forty-nine, Atsuo Yukimori is a humble auto mechanic living an almost penitentially quiet life in Tokyo, where

A Day in the Life contains twelve portraits of the vivid and curious realities experienced by a man in his sixties. These stories focus on the tiny paradoxes and everyday ridiculousness we each witness and of which we often take no note. Ranging from a visit to an exhibition of blurry photographs each taken with an exposure time of only a single second, to the story of a man stalked through the streets by a stranger for no greater a crime than making eye contact, A Day in the Life demonstrates why Senji Kuroi is considered one of the leading figures of contemporary Japanese literature.

Naoto Matsubara works in a Tokyo publishing house, though the work doesn't particularly interest him. What does interest him, we soon discover, is the purpose of life. Naoto ponders the powers of love, attachment, and mutual care by examining closely his own friends and lovers, searching out how exactly his connection to them confers meaning on his life. Along the way, Naoto also draws on the thought of many writers and philosophers, including Tolstoy, Fromm, and Mishima.