Woman on the Other Shore, by Mitsuyo Kakuta. Kodansha International, 2007. ISBN 4-7700-3043-6.

This novel was awarded Japan's prestigious Naoki Prize in 2004. Sayoko, a 35-year old homemaker with a 3-year-old child begins working for Aoi, a free-spirited, single career woman her own age who runs a travel agency/housekeeping business. Unable to connect with other mothers in her neighborhood, Sayoko is drawn to Aoi's independent lifestyle and easygoing personality. Aoi has not always been the self-confident person she now appears to be. Severe classroom bullying in junior high had forced her to change schools, uprooting her family to the countryside and leaving her walking on eggshells lest she prompt a recurrence of the bullying. The present-day friendship between Sayoko and Aoi on the one hand, and Aoi's painful high school past on the other, form a gripping two-tier narrative that converges in the final chapter.

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Japanese the Manga Way: An Illustrated guide to Grammar & Structure, by Wayne P. Lammers. Stone Bridge Press, 2005. ISBN 1-880656-90-6.

Japanese has a reputation for being difficult, but the basic structure is actually quite simple. I wrote this book to prove the point. In it, I boil all Japanese sentences down to three basic types, then start with the simplest single-word sentences of each type and gradually expand to more complex expressions following a logical and systematic progression. Every grammar point is illustrated with an example taken from "real life" manga published for the Japanese public. This not only roots the language points in genuine situations and usage, but also makes them entertaining and memorable.

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Undercurrents: Episodes from a Life on the Edge, by Shintaro Ishihara. Kodansha International, 2005. ISBN 4-7700-3007-X (hardcover).

The outspoken current governor of Tokyo, who before turning to politics was a prominent and successful novelist, has here turned his hand to literary non-fiction, assembling forty episodes from an active life that represent the times when he felt most alive. Many of the reminiscences tell of his adventures in scuba diving and sailing, often involving close shaves with death as he and his companions encounter a giant rock cod that could crush them against the wall of an underwater tunnel, or are nearly washed away to sea beyond the reach of rescuers, or remain lost in the middle of the Pacific for days on end during a yacht race. In more contemplative passages, he ponders the fine line separating life and death, as well as what lies beyond that boundary of common reality.

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Strangers, by Taichi Yamada. Faber and Faber, 2005. ISBN 0571224369 (First published by Vertical, 2003.)

Vaguely depressed since his recent divorce, middle-aged TV scriptwriter Harada decides to visit Asakusa one day, the neighborhood where he'd lived as a child until his parents were killed in a traffic accident. There he meets a couple who are the spitting image of his parents when they died, and they treat him as their son--except that they are now perhaps ten years his junior. The experience is both eerie and comforting, and Harada finds himself returning time and again to the couple's apartment for another dose of warmth and nostalgia...until the woman he has just begun seeing realizes that something is terribly wrong...

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Evening Clouds, by Junzo Shono. Stone Bridge Press, 2000. ISBN 1-880656-48-5 (softcover). NOW AVAILABLE AS KINDLE EBOOK

The once quiet country road running in front of the Ouras' house has turned into a noisy and crowded thoroughfare, so the family moves to a wooded ridge-top in the Tama hills of Kawasaki, southwest of Tokyo. But it isn't long before development begins to encroach on their remote new home as well. In telling of the Ouras' move, the process of setting down new roots, and the changes that follow, Shono creates what amounts to a meditation on how we find a place in this world, and how we both shape that place and are shaped by it.

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Still Life and Other Stories, by Junzo Shono. Stone Bridge Press, 1992. ISBN 1-880656-02-7 (softcover).

So little in these stories by Shono Junzo is overtly "Japanese" that readers of the translations may at times even forget that the stories are set in Japan. This gives them a universal appeal and familiarity, allowing them to become stories about any family of any modern society, not merely exotic stories of a country far away... The stories make one think of haiku poetry--especially the way haiku describe scenes or momentary events as if to say "Look!" ... [I]f we heed the command and turn our attention in the direction pointed, we see more than we had ever noticed before, even among the most commonplace of things. [More]

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Taken Captive: A Japanese POW's Story, by Shohei Ooka. Wiley, 1996. ISBN 0-471-14285-9 (hardcover).

"Shortly after New Year's Day, 1944, a thirty-five-year-old literary critic named Shohei Ooka was called to serve in the Japanese Imperial Army. His summons was typically terse and admitted no appeal. Upon reporting to a regimental depot in Tokyo, he was given rudimentary training and shipped off with a newly formed infantry battalion to join the garrison troops on the Japanese-occupied island of Mindoro, then nervously awaiting the expected American landing in the Philippines. There were few more improbable soldiers..."

The author of this literary POW journal will be familiar to many for his novel Fires on the Plain, also set in the Philippines near the end of World War II. [More]

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The Tale of Matsura: Fujiwara Teika's Experiment in Fiction. University of Michigan Center for Japanese Studies, 1992. ISBN 0-939512-48-3 (hardcover).

Around the turn of the 8th century, the young Japanese courtier Ujitada travels to China as deputy ambassador to the Chinese court. His superior accomplishements quickly win him the favor of the Chinese emperor, who on his deathbed asks Ujitada to look after his son, heir to the throne. A succession struggle ensues... The author of this late 12th-century court romance, Fujiwara Teika, is known among students of Japanese literature as the premier poet and literary scholar of his time and perhaps the most important influence in all of classical poetry, but it is less widely known that he also tried his hand at fiction in his youth. [More]

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Treasures 3: Stories & Art by Students in Japan & Oregon, collected by Chris Weber. Oregon Students Writing and Art Foundation, 1994.

Portland teacher Chris Weber asked students in Oregon and Japan to submit stories, poems, and artwork based on real-life experiences for an anthology to be published in both English and Japanese, then sifted through the several thousand submissions to select those that offered particularly vivid glimpses of each culture's perceptions, values, and way of life. After having each of the selected stories and poems translated into the other language, he compiled them with selections of artwork into this remarkable volume, published in nearly identical Japanese and English editions. The book received a Skipping Stones Magazine Honor Award. [More]

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