The Oxford Book of Japanese Short Stories

The Oxford Book of Japanese Short Stories offers a varied overview of Japan's finest literary talents ranging from the late nineteenth-century to the present-day. Be prepared to expand that reading list of yours upon completion of this collection -- one taste guarantees the need for another hit.

Stand-out pieces include:

Okamoto Kanoko's "Portrait of an Old Geisha": An older woman offers to 'keep' a young man, allowing him to pursue his dream of inventing; however, the gift of easy gold does not always equate to success.

Hayashi Motojiro's "The Accordion and the Fish Town": A complex vignette about one girl and the implications of settling in a small town after a life on the road with her hustler parents.

Hirabayashi Taiko's "Blind Chinese Soldiers": A startling piece blending the horrific consequences of war with the quiet, unconscious life of plain-clothes citizens.

Mishima Yukio's "Onnagata": A beautiful piece about kabuki theatre and one man's breathless experience with a powerful onnagata, a man who portrays female characters on stage.

Each writer dedicates ample space to creating exceptional atmospheric description, one that rivals the Canadian fascination with dense geographic (read: snow) passages. Also, readers be warned that narrative techniques differ quite a bit between Japan and the Western world -- endings are never concrete throughout these stories. We are offered a brief window into another world, but the opening is never sealed tight. Brilliant and beautiful, all in one.

Ideal for: Short story nerds; readers seeking some international cred; commuters aiming to lure that cute, intellectual type sitting in the seat across from them... ( )

This volume contains an amazing slice of contemporary (and slightly less than contemporary) Japanese writers. This book is the perfect intro to Japanese literature for those unfamiliar; the short stories within are good representations of their respective author's general style. It's a darn entertaining read, too; I loved nearly every story and and have reread several of them many times. ( )

Useful for including more contemporary stories than
Keene's modern Japanese Literature anthology ( )