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Classical Literature (until 1600's)[]

Title Author Year Description Cover
The Gossamer Years Mother of Michitsuna 974
The Gossamer Years
The Pillow Book Sei Shonagon 1002
The Pillow Book
The Tale of Genji Murasaki Shikibu 1021
The Tale Of Genji
The Tales of Ise Anonymous ~
The Tales Of Ise
Hojoki Kamo no Chomei 1212
Hojoki
Essays in Idleness Yoshida Kenko 1330
Essays In Idleness
The Tale of The Heike Anonymous 1371
The Tale Of The Heike

Edo Period (1603-1868)[]

Title Author Year Pages Description Cover
Life of an Amorous Woman Saikaku Ihara 1686 403
Life of an Amorous Woman
Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai Yamamoto Tsunetomo 1716 180
Hagakure
Four Major Plays Chikamatsu Monzaemon ~1720 220
Four Major Plays of Chikamatsu
Chushingura Takedo Izumo, Miyoshi Shoraku, Namiki Senryuu 1748 183
Chushingura
Tales of Moonlight and Rain Ueda Akinari 1776 248
Tales of Moonlight and Rain

Modern Literature (1868-1945)[]

Title Author Year Pages Description Book Cover
Ukigumo Futabatei Shimei 1887 381
Ukigumo
Pagoda, Skull, and Samurai Koda Rohan ~1889 280
Pagoda, Skull and Samurai
In the Shade of Spring Leaves Higuchi Ichiyo 1892-6 388
In the Shade of Spring Leaves
Japanese Gothic Tales Izumi Kyoka 1900 212
Japanese Gothic Tales
The Broken Commandment Toson Shimazaki 1906 276
The Broken Commandment
The Quilt and Other Stories Katai Tayama 1907 204
The Quilt and Other Stories
The Tales of Kenji Miyazawa Kenji Miyazawa 1924 216
The Tales of Kenji Miyazawa
Kokoro Natsume Soseki 1914 248
Kokoro
Botchan Natsume Soseki 1906 176
Botchan
I am a Cat Natsume Soseki 1905 656
I Am a Cat
The Wild Geese Mori Ogai 1913 128
The Wild Geese
The Paper Door and Other Stories Shiga Naoya 1927 177
The Paper Door and Other Stories
Rashomon and Other Stories Ryunosuke Akutagawa 1922 268
Rashomon and Other Stories
During the Rain & Flowers in the Shade Kafu Nagai ~1930 223
During the Rains and Flowers in the Shade
Musashi Eiji Yoshikawa 1935 970
Musashi
The Makioka Sisters Junichiro Tanizaki 1943 544
The Makioka Sisters
Naomi Junichiro Tanizaki 1924 256
Naomi
Japanese Tales of Mystery & Imagination Edogawa Ranpo ~1940 240
196150

Post War (1946 - present)[]

Title Author Year Pages Description Cover
The Counterfeiter and Other Stories Yasushi Inoue ~ 124 "In The Counterfeiter, a writer is commissioned to write the biography of a famous painter but becomes fascinated by a man who produced forgeries of the artist's work. Obasute concerns a man's obsession with a legend of old women being taken to a mountain and abandoned, and his interpretation of the actions of the members of his family in light of this legend. The Full Moon is a story of company politics, particularly the rise and fall of the firm's president, told largely through incidents at annual company parties."
The Counterfeiter and Other Stories
Snow Country Yasunari Kawabata 1947 192 "To this haunting novel of wasted love, Kawabata brings the brushstroke suggestiveness and astonishing grasp of motive that earned him the Nobel Prize for Literature. As he chronicles the affair between a wealthy dilettante and the mountain geisha who gives herself to him without illusions or regrets, one of Japan's greatest writers creates a work that is dense in implication and exalting in its sadness."
Snow Country
Palm-of-the-Hand Stories Yasunari Kawbata ~ 280 "Recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968, the novelist Yasunari Kawabata felt the essence of his art was to be found not in his longer works but in a series of short stories--which he called "Palm-of-the-Hand Stories"--written over the span of his career. In them we find loneliness, love, and the passage of time, demonstrating the range and complexity of a true master of short fiction."
Palm Of The Hand Stories
The Master of Go Yasunari Kawabata 1954 208 "Go is a game of strategy in which two players attempt to surround each other's black or white stones. Simple in its fundamentals, infinitely complex in its execution, it is an essential expression of the Japanese sensibility. And in his fictional chronicle of a match played between a revered and invincible Master and a younger, more progressive challenger, Yasunari Kawabata captured the moment in which the immutable traditions of imperial Japan met the onslaught of the twentieth century."
The Master of Go
The Setting Sun Osamu Dazai 1947 175 "Set in the early postwar years, it probes the destructive effects of war and the transition from a feudal Japan to an industrial society. The narrator is Kazuko, a young woman born to gentility but now impoverished. Though she wears Western clothes, her outlook is Japanese; her life is static, and she recognizes that she is spiritually empty. In the course of the novel she survives the deaths of her aristocratic mother and her sensitive, drug-addicted brother Naoji, an intellectual ravaged by his own and by society's spiritual failures."
The Setting Sun
No Longer Human Osamu Dazai 1948 177 "Osamu Dazai's No Longer Human narrates a seemingly normal life even while the protagonist feels himself incapable of understanding human beings.Yozo's attempts to reconcile himself to the world around him begin in early childhood, continue through high school, where he becomes a "clown" to mask his alienation, and eventually lead to a failed suicide attempt as an adult. Without sentimentality, he records the casual cruelties of life and its fleeting moments of human connection and tenderness."
No Longer Human
Fires on the Plain Shohei Ooka 1951 248 "This haunting novel explores the complete degradation and isolation of a man by war. Set on a Philippine island during World War II where the Japanese army is disintegrating under the blows of the American forces landings, Private Tamura's own private battles cost him first his hope and then his sanity as he loses his own tenuous ties with human society."
Fires on the Plain
The Waiting Years Fumiko Enchi 1957
The Waiting Years
Confessions of a Mask Yukio Mishima 1948
Confessions of a Mask
The Temple of the Golden Pavillion Yukio Mishima 1956
The Temple of the Golden Pavillion
Spring Snow Yukio Mishima 1963
Spring Snow
Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids Kenzaburo Oe 1958
Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids
A Personal Matter Kenzaburo Oe 1964
A Personal Matter
Black Rain Masuji Ibuse 1966
Black Rain
The Box Man Kobo Abe 1973
The Box Man
The Woman in the Dunes Kobo Abe 1962
The Woman In the Dunes
Silence Shusaku Endo 1966
Silence
The Samurai Shusaku Endo 1980
The Samurai
The Twilight Years Sawako Ariyoshi 1972
The Twilight Years
Almost Transparent Blue Ryu Murakami 1976
Almost Transparent Blue
Kitchen Banana Yoshimoto 1988
Kitchen
Norweigan Wood Haruki Murakami 1987
Norwegian Wood
The Elephant Vanishes Haruki Murakami 1991
The Elephant Vanishes
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle Haruki Murakami 1995
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
The Housekeeper and the Professor Yoko Ogawa 2003
The Housekeeper and the Professor
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