Introducing Ryu Murakami

Ryu Murakami is a Japanese novelist, short story writer, essayist and filmmaker. He explores human nature through dark themes of disillusion, drug use, murder and war, giving his work a surrealist, sinister air.  He is perhaps less well-known internationally than he deserves to be.  Singapore-based Piers Butel, who writes on culture and travel, here urges you to read him.

Scenes of staggering violence, a cast of misfits and outsiders, a twisted world that seems familiar but also deeply disturbing and a feeling that things probably won’t end up all right. The novels of Ryu Murakami are not always easy to read, but with drumming heartbeat-fast plots, cinematic sheen and a unique style, you won’t have time to be bored.

Indie spotlight: Inspiration from Onnagatta and Onna bugeisha

Indie spotlight focuses on self-publishing and indie authors.

K. Bird Lincoln, an American, now lives in the Midwest, but she has previously lived in Japan.  She is the author of the medieval Japanese fantasy series, Tiger Lily, which explores the gender-bending lives of rebellious girls living during a period of Japanese history relatively little-known in the West.

Here, K. Bird Lincoln talks to Alexa Kang about Onnagatta and Onna bugeisha, gender-fluid Japanese who inspired her character, Tiger Lily.

Indie Spotlight: Matthew Legare

Indie spotlight focusses on self-published authors and self-publishing. Here, Matthew Legare discusses his new novel Shadows of Tokyo, the first in a projected historical thriller-noir series set in pre-World War II Japan. The second book, Smoke Over Tokyo, is coming soon.

Matthew is an indie author publishing under the Black Mist Books imprint. He also reviews new fiction and interviews authors on his blog.

So, over to Matthew…

Student bookshelf: The Tale of Genji

Aurelia Paul is a senior year student at Boston University, studying comparative literature and Chinese. In her fortnightly column Student bookshelf, she shares responses to texts she's reading in her classes.

Here she discusses The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu, focussing on Genji’s fall from grace and Murasaki’s early feminism.

The Tale of Genji is sometimes called the world’s first novel. It is a classic work of Japanese literature that has been preserved since the early years of the Heian Period in the 11th century. It was written by the noblewoman and lady-in-waiting Murasaki Shikibu.

Genji, a superbly handsome man, is the second son of Emperor Kiritsubo, and a low-ranking concubine, Lady Kiritsubo. For political reasons he is delegated to civilian life and he becomes an imperial officer. The Tale of Genji concentrates on his romantic life and describes the customs of the aristocratic society of the time.

In the Kocho chapter, Genji arranges for the construction of Chinese pleasure boats in Lady Murasaki’s (the author’s) garden where a party is held in honour of a Spring Festival visit by the Empress Akikonomu and her ladies. The following day Lady Murasaki sends eight of her prettiest attendants to deliver a message to the Empress. Four are dressed as birds and four as butterflies. The children approach the Empress with gifts of cherry blossoms and yamabuki (Japanese roses). Tamakuzara, Genji’s adopted daughter. is in attendance, and attracts his roving eye.

The Heartvine chapter concerns Genji’s sexual entanglements. He is now pursuing Lady Murasaki. Meanwhile his wife, Aoi, and one of his former conquests, the Rokujo lady make no secret of their jealousy for one another.

So, over to Aurelia…

500 words from Clarissa Goenawan

500 words from is an occasional series in which novelists talk about their newly-published novels.

Clarissa Goenawan is an Indonesian-born Singaporean author. Rainbirds is her first novel.  It is set in 1990s Japan. In the small, fictional town of Akakawa, Keiko Ishida has just been murdered. In Tokyo, her brother Ren, the narrator, drops everything, including, temporarily, his girlfriend, to rush to the scene. As he tries to solve the crime, he begins to make sense of aspects of his sister’s life previously hidden from him, and thereby, too, aspects of his own life currently mysterious to him.

So, over to Clarissa...

Student bookshelf by Aurelia Paul: dreams in The Sarashina Diary

Aurelia Paul is a senior year student at Boston University, studying comparative literature and Chinese. In her fortnightly column, Student bookshelf, she shares responses to texts she's reading in her classes.

Here she discusses The Sarashina Diary, a memoir written by Lady Sarashina, the daughter of Sugawara no Takasue, a lady-in-waiting of Heian-period Japan - the Heian period was from 794 to 1185.

Lady Sarashina kept a diary to mark her bold 11th-century journey from the east of Japan to the capital. She continued writing for 40 more years. Her work stands out for its descriptions of her travels and pilgrimages, and is unique in the literature of the period, as well as one of the first in the genre of travel writing.

In many ways, Lady Sarashina seems modern. She married only at the late age of thirty-three and identified herself as a reader and writer more than as a wife and mother. Enthralled by romantic fiction, she wrote extensively about the disillusioning blows that reality can deal to fantasy.  She also recorded her dreams...

Student bookshelf by Aurelia Paul: Patriarchs on Paper

Aurelia Paul is a senior year student at Boston University, studying comparative literature and Chinese, in her new fortnightly column Student bookshelf, she shares responses to texts she's reading in her classes.

Here she discusses Patriarchs on Paper: A Critical History of Medieval Chan Literature by Alan Cole, in particular how it  draws parallels between the malleability of Chan / Zen Buddhism in Tang Dynasty China, and in modern times.

Patriarchs on Paper: A Critical History of Medieval Chan Literature raises many thought-provoking points. In the introduction, Alan Cole introduces two fundamental concepts. Firstly, that the lineages of Chan patriarchs are not unquestionable genealogies, as many Chan sects present them to be, but rather were edited and reconstructed during the Tang period. Alan Cole's second point is that the popular Western conception of Chan / Zen Buddhism, based on an influential book published in the 30's, is totally distorted. It is this idea that I am going to explore in greater detail.

Backlist books: I Am a Cat by Sōseki Natsume

Backlist books is a column by Lucy Day Werts that focuses on enduring, important works from or about Asia.

This post is about I Am a Cat, a series of semi-related stories published serially in 1905 and 1906 that provide a satirical look at Meiji-era Japan through the eyes of a smug young housecat.

Either eminent Japanese novelist Sōseki Natsume (1867 – 1916), also known for his novels Kokoro and Botchan, was prescient for choosing an uppity lolcat as his narrator, or that special attitude cats have has always been apt to make us laugh.

See below to find out what you need to know to decide whether you should read I Am a Cat, or what you should know about it even if you never do!

What kind of heart? Guest post from Alison Jean Lester

Although she is an American now based in England, Alison Jean Lester has variously studied, worked, and raised children in China, Italy, Taiwan, Japan and Singapore. Her first novel, Lillian on Life, was published in 2015, and her second, Yuki Means Happiness, came out in July.

Set in Tokyo, Yuki Means Happiness concerns the relationship between Diana, a young nanny newly-arrived from America, and her charge, two-year-old Yuki Yoshimura.  As Diana becomes increasingly attached to Yuki she also becomes aware that not everything in the Yoshimura household is as it first seemed. Before long, she must ask herself if she is brave enough to put everything on the line for Yuki, and thereby confront too her own demons.

So, over to Alison Jean…

New book announcement: Yuki Means Happiness by Alison Jean Lester

Yuki Means Happiness is a rich and powerfully illuminating portrait of the intense relationship between a young woman and her small charge, as well as one woman's journey to discover her true self.

Indie Spotlight: Fran Pickering

Indie Spotlight is our monthly column on self-publishing. This month Raelee Chapman speaks to Fran Pickering the indie author of the popular Josie Clark East-West fusion murder mysteries. Josie is an English expat sleuth living in Tokyo where these mysteries are set.

Indie Spotlight: G.L. Tysk

Indie Spotlight is our monthly column on self-publishing. This month, Raelee Chapman talks to indie author G.L Tysk.

G.L Tysk was born in Chicago to Hong Kong Immigrants and her novels focus on early American whaling history and its impact, 19^th century colonialism, and Asian and Pacific Islander immigrant culture. Her first novel The Sea-God at Sunrise is based on the story of John Manjiro one of the first Japanese people to live and work in America. It took four years to research and reached the quarter finals of the 2013 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards. It has also been well received on Goodreads with above 4 out of 5 stars as an average rating.  G.L Tysk’s new novel Paradise, the sequel to Sea-God at Sunrise, was released in February 2015.