Contemporary,

Popular and
Emergent
Literature

A Modular Approach with

Compendium of Readings

Prof. Marco D. Meduranda

Navotas Polytechnic College
 Module 3:

Styles and Concerns

of Contemporary
Stories

At the end of the week, the pre- service

teacher (PST) should be able to:

1. acquaint themselves with styles,

subjects, and concerns of contemporary
stories from East Asia.

2
 General Instructions

This module aims to immerse you to the

contemporary fiction of East Asia. You will read
Chapter 3 of the book “Contemporary Fiction of
the World.” This unit focuses on stories of East
Asia. You will be reading an exhaustive
bibliographical annotations of representative
contemporary literary works from China, Japan
and Korea.

The assessment tasks at the end will allow you

to demonstrate the essential understandings,
key competencies and desired learning
outcomes for each lessons.

Connect with your teacher via the learning

management system created for this particular
course. If you have clarifications and questions,
contact him via his email:
mdmed2410@gmail.com or through the
messenger chat of the class online learning
group.

Your success to this course lies in your hands.

Good luck!

MDM
CHAPTER 3

East Asia: China, Japan, and Korea

Language groups: Korean Japan

Chinese (Mandarin) Countries represented: Korea (North and South)
Japanese China Taiwan

INTRODUCTION
This chapter contains annotations of books translated from the primary languages of three East
Asian countries: China, Japan, and Korea.
The translated Chinese books mentioned here are by contemporary authors who have received a
relatively large amount of media attention as well as by those who have not. In the former category
are Nobel Prize winner Gao Xingjian (One Man’s Bible and Soul Mountain); Yu Hua (Brothers);
Ma Jian (The Noodle Maker and Beijing Coma); and Mo Yan (The Republic of Wine and Life and
Death Are Wearing Me Out). In the latter category are Wang Anyi (The Song of Everlasting Sorrow);
Ran Chen (A Private Life); Yan Lianke (Serve the People!); and Wang Shuo (Please Don’t Call Me
Human).
Among the contemporary Japanese novelists mentioned in this chapter are the ever-popular Haruki
Murakami, internationally known for such titles as Kafka on the Shore; Kobo Abe (The Woman in the
Dunes; The Ark Sakura; and Kangaroo Notebook); and Nobel Prize winner Kenzaburo Oe (Somersault).
But these three authors are only the tip of the iceberg. Names that may soon become as equally familiar
as Murakami, Abe, and Oe are Natsuo Kirino, whose psychological thrillers Out and Grotesque have
attracted much recent attention; Miyuki Miyabe, whose books All She Was Worth and Crossfire are often
discussed in the same breath as Kirino’s works; Yoshihiro Tatsumi, whose superb A Drifting Life is
considered to be a classic of the manga form; and Yasutaka Tsutsui, whose Salmonella Men on Planet
Porno and Other Stories has drawn rave reviews.
This chapter concludes with Korean fiction writers. Some contemporary novelists to keep in mind
are Hahn Moo-Sook (And So Flows History); Lee Seung-U (The Reverse Side of Life); Yi Munyol
76 Contemporary World Fiction

(Our Twisted Hero); and Park Kyong-ni (The Curse of Kim’s Daughters); and Kim Young-Ha (I Have
The Right to Destroy Myself).

Earlier Translated Literature

The Chinese fictional tradition builds on a tremendously rich heritage, especially the so-called Six
Classical Novels. Originally published in a period that spans the early sixteenth century to the late
eighteenth century, these panoramic and often multivolume works bring together elements of adven-
ture, history, philosophy, romance, satire, and allegory. Collectively, they can be said to depict the
political, social, religious, and cultural evolution of China up to 1800. Translated numerous times
throughout the twentieth century, recent English-language versions of these novels are entitled Three
Kingdoms; Outlaws of the Marsh; The Journey to the West; The Plum in the Golden Vase; The Schol-
ars; and The Story of the Stone. Many critics observe that of these six novels, the two most appreciated
are The Journey to the West (translated in four volumes by Anthony Yu) and The Story of the Stone
(translated in five volumes by David Hawkes and John Minford). Other famous Chinese novels
include Yu Li’s The Carnal Prayer Mat and E Liu’s The Travels of Lao Ts’an. In the middle decades
of the twentieth century, some of the most renowned Chinese authors are She Lao (Rickshaw; Ma and
Son; and Cat Country); Eileen Chang (The Rice-Sprout Song and Naked Earth); and Jin Ba (Family
and Cold Nights).
Just as contemporary Chinese novels draw strength from a diverse past, so do Japanese novels.
Readers who gravitate to Murakami and Kirino may therefore want to experience such Japanese trans-
lated classics as The Tale of Genji, an eleventh-century masterpiece by Shikibu Murasaki, and the late
seventeenth-century short story collection Five Women Who Loved Love by Saikaku Ihara. Important
twentieth-century writing has been produced by such renowned novelists as 1968 Nobel Prize winner
Yasunari Kawabata (Sound of the Mountain and The Izu Dancer and Other Stories); Yukio Mishima
(Spring Snow; Runaway Horses; and The Decay of the Angel); Jun’ichiro Tanizaki (The Makioka
Sisters); and Soseki Natsume (Kokoro).
For readers interested in classic Korean novels in English translation, a good place to begin are the
short stories and novels of Hwang Sun-Won, author of such titles as The Descendants of Cain and
Trees on a Slope—both of which poignantly describe the wrenching transformations in Korean society
after World War II and during the Korean War. Also significant is the short story collection The Wings
by Yi Sang, who died in 1937.

SOURCES CONSULTED
France, Peter. (Ed.). (2000). “East Asian Languages.” In The Oxford Guide to Literature in English Translation,
pp. 222–250. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mostow, Joshua. (Ed.). (2003). The Columbia Companion to Modern East Asian Literature. New York: Columbia
University Press.

BIBLIOGRAPHIC ESSAY
For all intents and purposes, readers and librarians would be very well-versed about the literatures of
China, Japan, and Korea if they only consulted one book: The Columbia Companion to Modern East
Asian Literature, edited by Joshua Mostow. We do not exaggerate one iota when we say that this book
is really that good and complete. Following a general introduction, there are three substantial sections
on each of the three literatures in question. Each of the sections has either four or five thematic essays
that cover various aspects of literary history, followed by lengthy and authoritative entries about indi-
vidual authors, works, and literary movements. There are about 50 entries for Japanese literature; about
40 for Chinese literature; and about 30 for Korean literature. In the Japan section, the thematic essays
 East Asia: China, Japan, and Korea 77

cover such topics as: the problem of the modern subject; nation and nationalism; gender, family, and
sexualities in modern literature; and the social organization of modern Japanese literature. In the the-
matic essays in the China and Korea sections, the same breadth of coverage is evident, with in-depth
articles about literary communities and the production of literature (China); modern Chinese literature
as an institution; and the literature of territorial division (Korea). In reality, the entries—which include
information about available translations—are detailed mini-essays. For Japan, some of the subjects
covered are: Meiji women writers; the debate over pure literature; Miyamoto Yuriko and socialist
writers; wartime fiction; occupation-period fiction; Kobo Abe; the 1960s and 1970s boom in women’s
writing; Haruki Murakami; and modern Okinawan literature. For China, entries range across such
topics as the debate on revolutionary literature; same-sex love in recent Chinese literature; martial arts
fiction and Jin Yong; Mo Yan and Red Sorghum; the Taiwan nativists; scar literature and the memory of
trauma; avant-garde fiction in China; post-Mao urban fiction; and the return to recluse literature, as
represented by the works of Gao Xingjian, the Nobel Prize winner for Literature in 2000. Korean
entries introduce such authors as Yi Kwangsu, Kim Tongni, and Yang Kwija. After browsing in The
Columbia Companion to Modern East Asian Literature, readers will certainly want to rush out and read
three or four of the novels mentioned therein.

China
Of course, one book is never enough on a subject that is truly of interest. Readers for whom Chinese
literature is a passion will be ecstatic to discover A History of Contemporary Chinese Literature by
Hong Zicheng. Written by an eminent Chinese scholar; reprinted numerous times in China; and finally
translated into English, the book provides a history of Chinese poetry, prose, and drama in the period
between 1949 and 1999, vibrantly contextualizing and explaining the various literary environments of
these five decades. Important chapters and subsections about Chinese fiction include: the literary
thought of Mao Zedong; the state of typology in fiction; contemporary forms of rural fiction; urban fic-
tion and fiction of industrial themes; beyond the mainstream; the thought liberation tide; educated
youth fiction in the reconsideration of history; root-seeking and the artistic forms of fiction; writers
of New Realism in fiction; the fiction of woman writers; and the overall situation of literature in the
1990s. Readers will be pleased to discover such 1980–1990s writers as Chi Li, Liu Heng, Ah Cheng,
Dai Houying, Zhang Chengzhi, Han Shaogong, Zhang Wei, Wang Anyi, Shen Rong, and Zhang Min.
Many of these writers “ponder the massive influence of material existence on the life of the individual”
who struggles to find a place for spiritual and philosophical concerns in the midst of what often
appears as unceasing commercialization (p. 448).
Equally valuable is the second edition of C. T. Hsia’s A History of Modern Chinese Fiction, which
has the virtue of beginning its coverage in the 1910s with Lu Xun, who is described as “[t]he earliest
practitioner of Western-style fiction” and is “generally regarded as the greatest modern Chinese
writer” (p. 28). Three important post-Xun realist fiction writers are intelligently analyzed in Fictional
Realism in Twentieth-Century China: Mao Dun, Lao She, Shen Congwen by David Der-wei Wang.
Mao Dun is presented as someone who shows “how realism is conditioned by political and historical
factors, and how the claim to reflect always contains the hidden mandate to conceal and exclude,
thereby pointing to power struggles in the text as well as in reality” (p. 23). On the other hand, Lao
She “depicts the real by subverting its closure with melodramatic tears and hysterical laughter,” while
Shen Congwen’s seemingly conservative fiction masks a longing for utopia (p. 23).
Another superb way to deepen one’s understanding about Chinese literature is through anthologies.
The standard work of this kind remains The Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature,
edited by Victor H. Mair. It contains examples of divinations; inscriptions; philosophical and religious
writings; classic verse; lyrics and aria; elegies and rhapsodies; folk songs and ballads; parables and
allegories; anecdotal fiction; so-called tales of the strange; short stories; and extracts from early and
78 Contemporary World Fiction

sometimes anonymous novels. It proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Chinese literature “is not a
seamless, monotonous fabric”; in the process, it criticizes literary historians “who emphasize only
standard genres and elite writers” and thereby “perpetuat[e] a false image of what Chinese literature
might be for our own age” (p. xxiii). Mair’s anthology of the vast range of traditional Chinese litera-
ture should be read in conjunction with The Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Literature, edited
by Joseph S. M. Lau and Howard Goldblatt. More than half the book is devoted to fiction from three
time periods: 1918–1949, 1949–1976, and post-1976. In addition to classic modern fiction from
Lu Xun, Mao Dun, Lao She, and Shen Congwen, there is work from Ba Jin, Ding Ling, Hua Tong,
Liu Yichang, Wang Meng, Xi Xi, Gao Xingjian, Mo Yan, Wang Anyi, and Yu Hua.
Readers specifically interested in Chinese women writers will no doubt be pleased to learn about
Writing Women in Modern China: An Anthology of Women’s Literature from the Early Twentieth
Century, edited by Amy D. Dooling and Kristina M. Torgeson, and Writing Women in Modern China:
The Revolutionary Years, 1936–1976, edited by Amy D. Dooling. Both these volumes deserve high
praise for including detailed biographical information about the anthologized authors as well as substan-
tial critical introductions analyzing the role and importance of women writers in Chinese cultural life.
Readers thus gain a good understanding about the historical circumstances in which such authors as
Yang Gang, Yang Jiang, Bai Wei, Zong Pu, Lu Yin, and Ding Ling wrote. Also of importance is A Place
of One’s Own: Stories of Self in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore, edited by Kwok-Kan Tam
and colleagues. As the title indicates, the notion of Chinese literature is expanded to include Taiwan,
Hong Kong, and Singapore. After perusing these anthologies, readers may be ready for Modern Chinese
Women Writers: Critical Appraisals, edited by Michael S. Duke, which is an invaluable critical assess-
ment of writers such as Chen Ruoxi, Li Ang, Zhang Kangkang, Zhu Lin, and Shen Rong.
One way for readers and librarians to tap into the most up-to-date developments in Chinese fiction
might be to keep an eye on books published by Cambria Press (New York). We say this based on the
two following titles: Feminism and Global Chineseness: The Cultural Production of Controversial
Women Authors by Aijun Zhu and The Jin Yong Phenomenon: Chinese Martial Arts Fiction and
Modern Chinese Literary History, edited by Ann Huss and Jianmei Liu. The first book analyzes such
wildly successful and controversial contemporary writers as Wei Hui, Li Ang, and Li Bihua. Published
in late 1999, Wei Hui’s novel Shanghai Baby became a much-talked-about Chinese bestseller in 2000
with its “bold and sensational presentation of female sexuality” (p. 113). It was interpreted as “a
response to cultural conflicts in contemporary China between the status of male-centered literary tra-
dition, the shaky position of feminism, and the rising power of popular culture” (pp. 112–113). Much
the same could be said of the effect of Li Ang and Li Bihua on cultural life in Taiwan and Hong Kong,
respectively. But another popular phenomenon in China is the martial arts novel, as represented by the
work of Jin Yong. Jin Yong’s translated novels have gained wide popularity, especially in the wake of
Ang Lee’s film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Fans of martial arts fiction will therefore want to
read every page of The Jin Yong Phenomenon: Chinese Martial Arts Fiction and Modern Chinese Lit-
erary History in order to better situate him within the Chinese literary canon.

Japan
Japanese literature is every bit as rich as Chinese literature. To fully appreciate its historical roots, it is
imperative that readers first consult The Princeton Companion to Classical Japanese Literature by Earl
Miner, Hiroko Odagiri, and Robert E. Morrell. In addition to a literary history that spans the time period
645 to 1868; chronologies (i.e., periods; regnal and era names; annals of works and events); biographical
information about major authors and works; and an overview of literary genres (e.g., waka, sutras), there
are sections explaining time and annual celebrations; ranks and offices; and architecture, clothing,
armor, and arms. In other words, The Princeton Companion provides the kind of practical information
necessary for an informed reading of classical Japanese literature. After thoroughly familiarizing
 East Asia: China, Japan, and Korea 79

themselves with this work, readers can then more fully appreciate the vast learning that is on display on
every page of the three volumes of Jin’ichi Konishi’s A History of Japanese Literature. Filled with
fascinating details about Japanese literature in the archaic and ancient ages, the early middle ages, and
the high middle ages, it is the product of a lifetime of meticulous scholarship and an extraordinary
breadth of sustained study. For a comprehensive one-volume literary history, we suggest Shuichi Kato’s
A History of Japanese Literature: From the Man’yoshú to Modern Times.
Exemplary discussions of individual Japanese novelists are contained in Donald Keene’s Five
Modern Japanese Novelists. Here, readers will get valuable contextual and critical insight about
Jun’ichiro Tanizaki, Yasunari Kawabata, Yukio Mishima, Kobo Abe, and Ryotaro Shiba. This book
should be supplemented with two volumes in the Dictionary of Literary Biography series: Japanese
Fiction Writers, 1868–1945 , edited by Van C. Gessel (1997; vol. 180), and Japanese Fiction Writers
Since World War II, also edited by Van C. Gessel (1997; vol. 182). There is detailed bio-
bibliographic information about such well-known writers such as Kenzaburo Oe (winner of the Nobel
Prize for Literature in 1994) and Haruki Murakami but also about such relatively little-known authors
as Kita Morio, Shiina Rinzo, Uno Chiyo, and Noma Hiroshi. Japanese Fiction Writers Since World
War II also features overviews (reprinted from Japanese Literature Today) about developments in
Japanese literature in each of the years between 1987 and 1995. Modern Japanese Writers, edited
by Jay Rubin, is also noteworthy, especially for its lengthy articles about the so-called atomic bomb
writers and the controversial novelist and short story writer Osamu Dazai, who is often compared to
Ernest Hemingway. John Lewell’s Modern Japanese Novelists: A Biographical Dictionary can also
be a valuable source of information for lesser-known novelists. Also, readers will be fascinated by
Japanese Women Writers: A Bio-Critical Sourcebook, edited by Chieko I. Mulhern, and Japanese
Women Fiction Writers: Their Culture and Society, 1890s to 1990s: English Language Sources, com-
piled by Carol Fairbanks. In fact, these last two reference texts should be used together. Mulhern’s text
has bio-bibliographic information about 58 female writers from the ninth century to about 1990.
Fairbanks’s text begins with the statement that there are “[o]ver three hundred works of fiction by
ninety-seven Japanese women writers from the 1890s to the 1990s . . . available in English: 64 novels,
217 short stories and novellas, and 24 excerpts from novels” (p. ix). Her book aims to provide informa-
tion about all these authors and their translated works. Arranged in alphabetical order by author, each
entry contains the titles (and summaries) of translated works as well as a list of “secondary sources
covering a wide range of subjects, including critical commentary, theoretical approaches, comparisons
with other authors (Japanese and Western), literary movements, social and political issues; gender
roles, or historical contexts” (p. x).
Two unique anthologies should also be consulted. The first is Modanizumu: Modernist Fiction from
Japan, 1913–1938, edited by William J. Tyler, which not only contains substantial extracts from often
overlooked writers such as Inagaki Taruho, Abe Tomoji, and Kajii Motojiro but also detailed introduc-
tions about various aspects of the literary modernist period in Japanese literature. The second is Part-
ings at Dawn: An Anthology of Japanese Gay Literature, edited by Stephen D. Miller, which
highlights “numerous literary works dating from the classical court culture of the Heian Period
(794–1185) up to modern times that will be of interest to anyone concerned with understanding the
various meanings ascribed to sexual and emotional relations between members of the same sex in
Japan” (p. 11). As the back cover of the book indicates, “The renowned 17th century writer Ihara
Saikaku is well represented with his stories of samurai and their boyloves.” Among other authors
included are Hiruma Hisao and Yukio Mishima.
Finally, no discussion of Japanese culture and literature can overlook manga. To get some sense of the
manga phenomena and the way that it has permeated all aspects of Japanese culture, we recommend
Adult Manga: Culture and Power in Contemporary Japanese Society by Sharon Kinsella and Japanese
Visual Culture: Explorations in the World of Manga and Anime, edited by Mark W. MacWilliams. This
last book is particularly salient, with wide-ranging and informative essays about such topics as manga in
80 Contemporary World Fiction

Japanese history; characters, themes, and narrative patterns in the manga of Osamu Tezuka; teenage
girls, romance comics, and contemporary Japanese culture; narratives of the Second World War in
Japanese manga, 1957–1977; and medieval genealogies of manga and anime horror.

Korea
The best way to grasp the complexities and sophistication of Korean literature is through A History
of Korean Literature, edited by Peter H. Lee, and Understanding Korean Literature by Kim Hunggyu.
We recommend that readers start with Hunggyu’s book, which explains the relationship among oral,
classical Chinese, and vernacular Korean literatures; the history of the Korean language and its various
literary styles; the genres of Korean literature, including the classic novel, new novel, and modern
novel; and the various phases of Korean literature. Readers can then immerse themselves in Lee’s vol-
ume, which contains elegant and definitive essays about the Korean language; major literary forms,
prosody, and themes in Korean poetry; the shift from oral to written literature; literary genres and
works in Chinese and the vernacular from the beginning of the C.E. era to the end of the nineteenth
century; detailed overviews about fiction and poetry written by men and women in various periods
of the twentieth century; and a concluding chapter about the literature of North Korea. Whenever
people talk about Korean culture and literature, Lee’s book will always be mentioned as a landmark.
For a landmark of a different kind, the next place to turn is Ann Sung-Hi Lee’s book Yi Kwang-Su
and Modern Korean Literature, which not only contains a translation of Kwang-su’s The Heartless
(thought by many scholars to be one of the most important Korean novels of the twentieth century)
but also a detailed consideration of the historical and cultural forces and issues that laid the ground-
work for the development of Korean fiction in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. There
is a wealth of information about other Korean novelists, poets, and playwrights in Who’s Who in
Korean Literature, compiled by the Korean Culture and Arts Foundation. Here, readers will discover
novelists such as Soo-Kil Ahn, Sun-Won Hwang, and In-Hoon Choi.
Finally, we wish to draw attention to the tremendously diverse array of fiction contained in the follow-
ing anthologies: Modern Korean Literature: An Anthology, 1908–1965 , edited by Chung Chong-Wha;
Unspoken Voices: Selected Short Stories by Korean Women Writers, edited by Jin-Young. Choi;
A Ready-Made Life: Early Masters of Modern Korean Fiction, edited by Kim Chong-un and Bruce
Fulton; Modern Korean Fiction: An Anthology, edited by Bruce Fulton and Youngmin Kwon; and
the expanded edition of Land of Exile: Contemporary Korean Fiction, edited by Marshall R. Pihl, Bruce
Fulton, and Ju-Chan Fulton.

SELECTED REFERENCES
Choi, Jin-Young. (Ed.). (2002). Unspoken Voices: Selected Short Stories by Korean Women Writers. Dumont, NJ:
Homa & Sekey Books.
Chong-un, Kim, and Fulton, Bruce. (Eds.). (1998). A Ready-Made Life: Early Masters of Modern Korean Fiction.
Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai‘i Press.
Chong-Wha, Chung. (Ed.). (1995). Modern Korean Literature: An Anthology, 1908–1965 . London: Kegan Paul.
Dooling, Amy D. (Ed.). (2005). Writing Women in Modern China: The Revolutionary Years, 1936–1976.
New York: Columbia University Press.
Dooling, Amy D., and Torgeson, Kristina M. (Eds.). (1998). Writing Women in Modern China: An Anthology of
Women’s Literature from the Early Twentieth Century. New York: Columbia University Press.
Duke, Michael S. (Ed.). (1989). Modern Chinese Women Writers: Critical Appraisals. Armonk, NY: M. E.
Sharpe.
Fairbanks, Carol. (Ed.). (2002). Japanese Women Fiction Writers: Their Culture and Society, 1890s to 1990s:
English Language Sources. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press.
Fulton, Bruce, and Kwon Youngmin. (Eds.). (2005). Modern Korean Fiction: An Anthology. New York: Columbia
Press.
 East Asia: China, Japan, and Korea 81

Hsia, C. T. (1971). A History of Modern Chinese Fiction. (2nd ed.). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Hunggyu, Kim. (1997). Understanding Korean Literature. (Trans. by Robert J. Fouser). Armonk, NY: M. E.
Sharpe.
Huss, Ann, and Liu, Jianmei. (Eds.). (2007). The Jin Yong Phenomenon: Chinese Martial Arts Fiction and
Modern Chinese Literary History. Youngstown, NY: Cambria Press.
Kato, Shuichi. (1997). A History of Japanese Literature: From the Man’yoshú to Modern Times. (New abridged
ed.). Richmond, Surrey, UK: Japan Library.
Keene, Donald. (2003). Five Modern Japanese Novelists. New York: Columbia University Press.
Kinsella, Sharon. (2000). Adult Manga: Culture and Power in Contemporary Japanese Society. Richmond,
Surrey, UK: Curzon Press.
Konishi, Jin’ichi. (1984–1991) A History of Japanese Literature. (3 vols.). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Korean Culture and Arts Foundation. (1996). Who’s Who in Korean Literature. Elizabeth, NJ: Hollym.
Lau, Joseph S. M., and Goldblatt, Howard. (Eds.). (2007). The Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Litera-
ture. (2nd ed.). New York: Columbia University Press.
Lee, Ann Sung-Hi. (2005). Yi Kwang-Su and Modern Korean Literature. Ithaca, NY: East Asia Program Cornell
University.
Lee, Peter H. (Ed.). (2003). A History of Korean Literature. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Lewell, John. (1993). Modern Japanese Novelists: A Biographical Dictionary. New York: Kodansha
International.
MacWilliams, Mark W. (Ed.). (2008). Japanese Visual Culture: Explorations in the World of Manga and Anime.
Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.
Mair, Victor H. (Ed.). (1994). The Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature. New York: Columbia
University Press.
Miller, Stephen D. (Ed.). (1996). Partings at Dawn: An Anthology of Japanese Gay Literature. San Francisco,
CA: Gay Sunshine Press.
Miner, Earl; Odagiri, Hiroko; and Morrell Robert E. (1985). The Princeton Companion to Classical Japanese
Literature. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Mostow, Joshua. (Ed.). (2003). The Columbia Companion to Modern East Asian Literature. New York: Columbia
University Press.
Mulhern, Chieko I. (Ed.). (1994). Japanese Women Writers: A Bio-Critical Sourcebook. Westport, CT:
Greenwood Press.
Pihl, Marshall R.; Fulton, Bruce; and Fulton, Ju-Chan. (Eds.). (2007). Land of Exile: Contemporary Korean Fic-
tion. (expanded ed.). Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.
Rubin, Jay. (Ed.). (2001). Modern Japanese Writers. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
Tam, Kwok-Kan; Yip, Terry Siu-Han; and Dissanayake, Wimal. (Eds.). (1999). A Place of One’s Own: Stories of
Self in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Tyler, William J. (Ed.). (2008). Modanizumu: Modernist Fiction from Japan, 1913–1938. Honolulu, HI: Univer-
sity of Hawai‘i Press.
Wang, David Der-wei. (1992). Fictional Realism in Twentieth-Century China: Mao Dun, Lao She, Shen Congwen.
New York: Columbia University Press.
Zhu, Aijun. (2007). Feminism and Global Chineseness: The Cultural Production of Controversial Women
Authors. Youngstown, NY: Cambria Press.
Zicheng, Hong. (2007). A History of Contemporary Chinese Literature. (Trans. by Michael M. Day). Leiden, The
Netherlands: Brill.

ANNOTATIONS FOR TRANSLATED BOOKS FROM CHINA

Acheng (Ah Cheng). Three Kings: Three Stories from Today’s China.
Translated by Bonnie McDougall. London: Collins-Harvill, 1990. 223 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: mainstream fiction; short stories
These stories transpose and rework motifs and images from folktales and legends into contemporary
settings. A chess prodigy loses a game to an older man. A forester—whose soul and spirit reside in
82 Contemporary World Fiction

an enchanted tree—is compelled by governmental authorities to destroy the tree; he perishes along
with it. A newly appointed teacher in a rural area loses his job after trying to teach his students to
think independently.
Subject keyword: social problems
Original language: Chinese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Choice 31 (April 1994): 1249.
Cohn, Don. Far Eastern Economic Review 150 (8 November 1990): 40.
Another translated book written by Acheng: Unfilled Graves

Bei Ai (Ai Bei). Red Ivy, Green Earth Mother.

Translated by Howard Goldblatt. Salt Lake City, UT: Peregrine Smith Books, 1990. 146 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: mainstream fiction; women’s lives
The three short stories and novella that constitute this book take place after the Chinese Cultural
Revolution of the late 1960s and early 1970s, when free economic zones and nascent democratic
principles were introduced in China. Bei’s middle-class heroines live in a fast-changing but still
male-dominated society clouded by political uncertainty, cultural confusion, and hypocrisy. In the
novella “Red Ivy,” Ji Li—a mayor’s daughter who is the niece of a high-ranking party member—
works in a women’s correctional facility. Her view is that while life in prison is harsh, it is in many
ways preferable to a life of so-called freedom that is free in name only. The three short stories take
place in domestic settings, where women live in deep unhappiness and often in a suicidal fever
brought on by marital infidelities, abusive husbands, and smothering despotic parents—all exacer-
bated by political corruption.
Subject keywords: politics; power
Original language: Chinese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Amazon.com (book description).
Dean, Kitty Chen. Library Journal. 115 (August 1990): 136.
Kaganoff, Penny. Publishers Weekly 237 (24 August 1990): 58.
Mullen, Bill. Chicago Tribune, 9 September 1990, p. 7.
Solomon, Charles. Los Angeles Times, 30 September 1990, p. 14.

Alai. Red Poppies.

Translated by Howard Goldblatt and Sylvia Li-chun Lin. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2002. 433
pages.
Genre/literary style/story type: historical fiction
The days of feudal Tibet are passing; soon, the Chinese will invade Tibet and bring poppy seeds—
both a source of prosperity and a scourge for the native population. The narrator of the novel is
an adolescent Young Master, the second son of a Tibetan ruler. He is notorious for his eccentric
behavior, mood swings, and strange antics, but he turns out to be a prophet who has a deep understand-
ing of the fragility of human existence. This book, which has been compared to the works of Gabriel
Garcı́a Márquez and Salman Rushdie, can be understood as an elegy for a vanishing way of life.
Subject keywords: politics; power
Original language: Chinese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Crossette, Barbara. The New York Times Book Review, 12 May 2002, p. 18.
Hilton, Isabel. Los Angeles Times, 8 December 2002, p. R3.
Shoup, Sheila. School Library Journal 48 (May 2002): 179.
Wu, Fatima. World Literature Today 77 (April/June 2003): 92.
 East Asia: China, Japan, and Korea 83

Feiyu Bi (Bi Feiyu). The Moon Opera.

Translated by Howard Goldblatt and Sylvia Li-chun Lin. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2007.
128 pages.
Genre/literary style/story type: mainstream fiction
Politics, jealousy, intrigue, and oppression are present in every sphere of life; the opera is no differ-
ent. This novel recounts the tangled and tragic tale of an opera singer who scalds her understudy
with boiling water. After earning her living as a teacher for some two decades, she returns to the
stage at the behest of a factory-owner millionaire.
Related title by the same author:
Readers may also enjoy Three Sisters, which examines the quest for power and influence through
the lives of Yumi, Yuxiu, and Yuyang—each of whom employs a different character trait to achieve
fame and popularity.
Subject keyword: identity
Original language: Chinese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Amazon. com (product description).
Fantastic Fiction website (book description), http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk.
Another translated book written by Feiyu Bi: Three Sisters

Naiqian Cao (Cao Naiqian). There’s Nothing I Can Do When I Think of You Late at Night.
Translated by John Balcom. New York: Columbia University Press, 2009. 232 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: mainstream fiction; short stories
There is isolated—and then there is isolated. This collection of interlinked stories describes a loca-
tion that most definitely falls into the second category and is based on an actual village to which
the author was exiled during the Cultural Revolution. In Wen Clan Caves, life is rudimentary
and abysmally harsh. Despair permeates every aspect of life, as do sordid passions that explode
into violence. The stark, bleak lives of the villagers have an uncompromising and raw realism that
makes them tragic figures from another age. This book, which the translator referred to as an
example of “austere lyricism” in his introduction, has been compared to such classic works as
Go Down, Moses by William Faulkner; Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson; and Erskine
Caldwell’s fiction.
Subject keyword: rural life
Original language: Chinese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Columbia University Press website (book description), http://cup.columbia.edu.
The Complete Review (book review), http://www.complete-review.com.
Hardenberg, Wendy. Three Percent website, http://www.rochester.edu/College/translation/
threepercent.

Hsien-liang Chang (Zhang Xianliang). Getting Used to Dying.

Translated by Martha Avery. New York: HarperCollins, 1991. 291 pages.
Genre/literary style/story type: mainstream fiction
Blending the real and the hallucinatory fantastic, this book is set against the background of political
events in communist China from the 1950s to the 1980s and a visit to the United States. During the
Chinese Cultural Revolution, people were jailed for being educated, literate, and having had
property-owning relatives or parents, among other things. Partly autobiographical, this novel is a
grim journey into the psyche of a nameless protagonist who has been imprisoned for 22 years.
Subject keywords: politics; power
Original language: Chinese
84 Contemporary World Fiction

Sources consulted for annotation:

Dean, Kitty Chen. Library Journal 115 (December 1990): 167.
Dirlam, Sharon. Los Angeles Times, 3 February 1991, p. 6.
Price, Ruth. Chicago Tribune, 3 February 1991, p. 6.
Steinberg, Sybil S. Publishers Weekly 237 (16 November 1990): 43.
Some other translated books written by Hsien-liang Chang: Mimosa and Other Stories; Half of
Man Is Woman

S. K. Chang (Chang Hsi-kuo). The City Trilogy: Five Jade Disks, Defenders of the Dragon City,
Tale of a Feather.
Translated by John Balcom. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. 407 pages.
Genre/literary style/story type: speculative fiction
This science-fiction trilogy by a Taiwanese writer is situated in imaginary Sunlon City, which is a
world unto itself with distinctive traditions, regulations, and cultural practices. In Five Jade Disks,
the Huhui people defend Sunlon from a clan of Shan warriors; in Defenders of the Dragon City,
the Shan make a second attempt to defeat Sunlon. Tyrannical Mayor Ma ascends to power in Tale
of a Feather, and the city—torn by political rivalry and intrigue—ends up in ruins. The book is rec-
ommended for fans of Tolkien.
Subject keywords: politics; power
Original language: Chinese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Cannon, Peter. Publishers Weekly 250 (10 March 2003): 57.
Cassada, Jackie. Library Journal 128 (15 April 2003): 129.
Schroeder, Regina. Booklist 99 (1 May 2003): 1586.
Another translated book written by S. K. Chang: Chess King

Jo-hsi Ch’en (Ruoxi Chen). The Execution of Mayor Yin, and Other Stories From the Great Pro-
letarian Cultural Revolution.
Translated by Nancy Ing and Howard Goldblatt. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2004.
202 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: mainstream fiction; short stories
The author is a Taiwanese-born writer who returned to China to participate in the Maoist reforms of
the 1960s after receiving her graduate degree in the United States—only to leave for Hong Kong
and then Canada a few years later. This collection of stories deals with daily life in China during
the Cultural Revolution. As the raging paranoia engendered by the revolution reaches its crest, a
woman spies on her neighbor to prove her marital infidelity and ensure that she receives a just pun-
ishment. In another story, parents agonize over their four-year-old son’s fate after he utters a silly
sentence about Mao while playing.
Subject keywords: politics; power
Original language: Chinese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Douglas, Carol Anne. Off Our Backs 9 (30 September 1979): 3.
Kinkley, J. C. Choice 42 (March 2005): 1225.
Some other translated books written by Jo-hsi Ch’en: The Short Stories of Chen Ruoxi, Trans-
lated from the Original Chinese: A Writer at the Crossroad; The Old Man and Other Stories

Ran Chen. A Private Life.

Translated by John Howard-Gibbon. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004. 214 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: mainstream fiction; women’s lives
 East Asia: China, Japan, and Korea 85

This novel traces the sexual awakening and maturation of Niuniu, who first falls in love with a male
school teacher; then has a lesbian experience with an older neighbor, the widow Ho; and finally
finds true love in college with Yin Nan. Disowned by her father, she becomes an outcast, finding
strength and refuge in her mother and lovers. But after her mother and the widow Ho die and after
Yin Nan disappears during the mayhem of the Tiananmen Square massacre, Niuniu withdraws to
the hallucinatory world of her dreams, visions, and memories. The novel provides an in-depth
analysis of the mindset and psyche of a woman fleeing from a hostile environment to the soothing
solitariness of an internal world.
Subject keyword: family histories
Original language: Chinese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Tangalos, Sofia A. Library Journal 129 (August 2004): 64.
Williams, P. F. Choice 42 (February 2005): 1019.
Zaleski, Jeff. Publishers Weekly 251 (31 May 2004): 50.

Yuanbin Chen (Chen Yuanbin). The Story of Qiuju.

Translated by Anna Walling. Beijing: Chinese Literature Press, 1995. 206 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: mainstream fiction; short stories
One of the four stories in this collection is about a pregnant and uneducated peasant woman who dis-
plays astounding fortitude when she defends her husband in front of a scornful village ruler, thus
ensuring justice for her family. A movie based on this story was awarded the Golden Rooster, China’s
highest cinematic award, as well as the Golden Lion Prize at the Venice International Film Festival.
Subject keywords: family histories; rural life
Original language: Chinese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Amazon.com (book description).
Oon, Clarissa. Straits Times, 15 January 2003 (from Factiva databases).
Yuen, Lowell. Straits Times, 29 November 1992 (from Factiva databases).

Naishan Cheng (Cheng Naishan). The Banker.

Translated by Britten Dean. San Francisco, CA: China Books & Periodicals, 1992. 459 pages.
Genre/literary style/story type: historical fiction
This is the first novel in a trilogy that chronicles three generations of a well-to-do Chinese family in
Shanghai. Set against the backdrop of what is referred to as the Second Sino-Japanese War, which
roughly coincided with World War II, it focuses on Zhu Jingchen’s ascension from modest begin-
nings to bank president. But his savvy financial leadership is no match for the multifaceted political
situation that China finds itself in, and he is eventually arrested for his political views.
Subject keywords: family histories; war
Original language: Chinese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Mintz, Kenneth. Library Journal 118 (1 March 1993): 106.
Publishers Weekly 240 (8 February 1993): 80.
Some other translated books written by Naishan Cheng: The Blue House; The Piano Tuner

Zijian Chi (Chi Zijian). Figments of the Supernatural.

Translated by Simon Patton. Sydney, Australia: James Joyce Press, 2004. 206 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: mainstream fiction; women’s lives
Told from a feminist perspective, the stories in this collection describe life and culture in northern
China. A representative story is “Fine Rain at Dusk on Grieg’s Sea,” which alternates between
86 Contemporary World Fiction

Norway, the homeland of composer Edvard Grieg, and Mona, a tiny town in China’s countryside.
While in Norway, the narrator hears Grieg’s music mixed with the sound of rain, and she realizes
that she has heard this same enchanting melody in her hometown in China.
Subject keywords: identity; social roles
Original language: Chinese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Boland, Rosita. Irish Times, 10 June 2004, p. 16.
Ping, Wang. MCLC Resource Center (book review), http://mclc.osu.edu.
Another translated book written by Zijian Chi: A Flock in the Wilderness

Jicai Feng (Feng Jicai). The Three-Inch Golden Lotus.

Translated by David Wakefield. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1994. 239 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: historical fiction; literary historical
A family’s history is told through a social and historical exploration of the ancient custom of foot-
binding. The head of the Tong family is an antiques dealer who yearns for perfection. When Tong
sees the feet of Fragrant Lotus, he knows that he has glimpsed heaven, so he insists on marrying
her to one of his sons. Fragrant Lotus assumes a prominent place within the Tong family until the
practice of foot-binding is abolished and bound feet are considered repulsive.
Subject keywords: family histories; social roles
Original language: Chinese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Amazon.com (review from Kirkus Reviews).
Chen, Jianguo. World Literature Today 69 (Summer 1995): 643.
Dean, Kitty Chen. Library Journal 119 (15 March 1994): 100.
Publishers Weekly 241 (31 January 1994): 81.
Sullivan, Mary Ellen. Booklist 90 (15 March 1994): 1326.
Some other translated books written by Jicai Feng: Chrysanthemums and Other Stories; The
Miraculous Pigtail

Xingjian Gao (Gao Xingjian). One Man’s Bible.

Translated by Mabel Lee. New York: HarperCollins, 2002. 450 pages.
Genre/literary style/story type: mainstream fiction
The events of this semiautobiographical novel begin in 1996–1997 in Hong Kong when the narrator
has a torrid four-day-long affair with a woman who forces him to confront his past. Told in flash-
backs and using stream of consciousness, the book is a harrowing account of the Chinese Cultural
Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s and the narrator’s participation in the psychological cruelties
that were an everyday part of that era. In a perfervid atmosphere governed by fear and paranoia,
the very idea of humanity changed profoundly. Critics have compared Gao to such writers as
Anchee Min, Ha Jin, and Milan Kundera.
Related title by the same author:
Readers should also experience Soul Mountain, which is a semiautobiographical novel about a
journey through a mountainous region of China that Gao undertook in the early 1980s after he
had been misdiagnosed with lung cancer and was the subject of rumors that he was about to be
imprisoned.
Subject keywords: philosophy; politics
Original language: Chinese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Bates, Milton J. World Literature Today 78 (January/April 2004): 76.
Bernstein, Richard. The New York Times, 18 October 2002 (online).
 East Asia: China, Japan, and Korea 87

Kristof, Nicholas D. The New York Times Book Review, 24 December 2000 (online).
Quanm Shirley N. Library Journal 127 (August 2002): 142.
Zaleski, Jeff. Publishers Weekly 249 (5 August 2002): 51.
Some other translated books written by Xingjian Gao: Soul Mountain; Buying a Fishing Rod for
My Grandfather; One Man’s Bible; Return to Painting; The Case for Literature

Hua Gu (Gu Hua). Virgin Widows.

Translated by Howard Goldblatt. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1996. 165 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: mainstream fiction; women’s lives
Through parallel stories of two women living 100 years apart, the author explores the question of
widowhood and remarriage. When the aging and violent husband of Guihua Yao dies, she wishes
to marry one of her husband’s employees, but her choice encounters broad community opposition.
Qingyu Yang—whose youthful marriage to the son of aristocrats rescued her from a life of pov-
erty—chooses to remain chaste after her husband’s death, thus honoring his memory and ensuring
her continued economic survival.
Subject keywords: identity; social roles
Original language: Chinese
Source consulted for annotation:
Sorenson, Simon. World Literature Today 72 (Winter 1998): 203.
Some other translated books written by Hua Gu: Pagoda Ridge and Other Stories; Small Town
Called Hibiscus

Xiaolu Guo. Village of Stone.

Translated by Cindy Carter. London: Chatto & Windus, 2004. 183 pages.
Genre/literary style/story type: mainstream fiction
When a package of dried eel arrives for Coral from her native village, this mysterious gift unleashes
a stream of unhappy memories. Coral has made a new life for herself in Beijing in the company of
her boyfriend, Red, but she is instantly whisked back to her lonely and tragic existence as an orphan
raised by grandparents who did not talk to one another.
Subject keywords: rural life; urban life
Original language: Chinese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Amazon.com (book description).
Danny Yee’s Book Reviews (book review), http://dannyreviews.com.
Morgan, Vivienne. Birmingham Post, 24 April 2004, p. 53.

Shaogong Han (Han Shaogong). A Dictionary of Maqiao.

Translated by Julia Lovell. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. 322 pages.
Genre/literary style/story type: mainstream fiction
Based on the author’s experiences working in rural China during the Cultural Revolution, this tragi-
comic novel is set in the imaginary village of Maqiao. Written in the form of a dictionary with 111
entries, it explores the many absurd decisions taken by China’s leadership during this period of
violent political upheaval, including Mao’s plan to standardize the Chinese language. Critics have
compared the author to François Rabelais.
Subject keywords: power; rural life
Original language: Chinese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Ehrenreich, Ben. The Village Voice, 17 September/23 September 2003, p. 96.
Quan, Shirley N. Library Journal 128 (15 June 2003): 101.
88 Contemporary World Fiction

Wolff, Katherine. The New York Times Book Review, 13 August 2003, p. 17.
Wu, Fatima. World Literature Today 78 (September/December 2004): 85.
Zaleski, Jeff. Publishers Weekly 250 (16 June 2003): 49.
Another translated book written by Shaogong Han: Homecoming? and Other Stories

Ying Hong (Hong Ying). Peacock Cries at the Three Gorges.

Translated by Mark Smith and Henry Zhao. London: Marion Boyars, 2004. 334 pages.
Genre/literary style/story type: mainstream fiction
This is the story of reincarnated lovers set against the construction of the Three Gorges Dam project
on the Yangtze River. Dr. Liu, a research geneticist, is married to the director of this mammoth and
environmentally controversial project. Unexpectedly discovering that her husband is being unfaith-
ful to her, she leaves both her job and marriage. When she visits her aunt, Liu becomes acquainted
with her aunt’s son, Yueming, who is an artist and fervently against Three Gorges. As their relation-
ship deepens, so does Liu’s understanding about the stakes involved in the dam project.
Subject keywords: family histories; politics
Original language: Chinese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Amazon.com (book description).
Tangalos, Sofia A. Library Journal 129 (December 2004): 100.
Some other translated books written by Ying Hong: Daughter of the River; K: The Art of Love;
Summer of Betrayal; A Lipstick Called Red Pepper: Fiction About Gay & Lesbian Love in China

Chunming Huang (Huang Chun-ming). The Taste of Apples: Taiwanese Stories (or The Drown-
ing of an Old Cat and Other Stories).
Translated by Howard Goldblatt. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001. 251 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: mainstream fiction; short stories
Written in the style of Anton Chekhov, the nine stories in this collection describe life in rural
Taiwan, focusing on the poor, the marginalized, and the eccentric. The author’s cast of characters
struggle to eke out an existence at the crossroads of modernity and tradition, caught in a
no-man’s-land of psychological desolation and bleakness.
Subject keywords: rural life; culture conflict
Original language: Chinese.
Sources consulted for annotation:
Amazon.com (book description).
Kinkley, Jeffrey C. World Literature Today 75 (Summer 2001): 142.
Rubin, Merle. Los Angeles Times, 2 July 2001, p. E3.

Pingwa Jia (Jia Pingwa). Turbulence.

Translated by Howard Goldblatt. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1991. 507
pages.
Genre/literary style/story type: mainstream fiction
As the Chinese economy went into capitalist overdrive in the 1980s, it seems everyone wanted to try
their hand at entrepreneurship. Rural villages were no exception. And it is in these rural villages that
the effects of capitalist mayhem can best be seen, as age-old traditions are left behind. As some indi-
viduals sell their souls for success and profit, they struggle to retain some semblance of humanity.
As others battle the corruption of entrenched interests and try to find their own place in the sun, they
too must calculate just exactly what they lose and what they gain by adherence to contemporary
mores and less-than-ethical practices. This epic novel has received almost unanimous critical
acclaim for its portrayal of a village on the cusp of irreversible change.
 East Asia: China, Japan, and Korea 89

Subject keywords: rural life; modernization

Original language: Chinese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Amazon.com (book description; review from Kirkus Reviews).
Duckworth, Michael. Asian Wall Street Journal, 18 October 1991, p. 13.
Library Journal 116 (August 1991): 145.
Publishers Weekly 238 (30 August 1991): 66.
Some other translated books written by Pingwa Jia: The Heavenly Hound; Heavenly Rain

Rong Jiang (Jiang Rong; pseudonym for Lu Jiamin). Wolf Totem.

Translated by Howard Goldblatt. New York: Penguin, 2008. 527 pages.
Genre/literary style/story type: mainstream fiction
This novel was described by Adrienne Clarkson, a former governor general of Canada, as “a pas-
sionate argument about the complex interrelationship between nomads and settlers, animals and
human beings, nature and culture.” As noted by Pankaj Mishra, it focuses on “the education of an
intellectual from China’s majority Han community living with nomadic herders in the grasslands
of Inner Mongolia.” Chen Zhen is the intellectual in question, and as he learns more about his envi-
ronment, the book becomes not only “an indictment of Han imperialism” but also “a guide to the
troubled self-images of [the Chinese people] as they stumble, grappling with some inconvenient
truths of their own, into modernity.”
Subject keyword: rural life
Original language: Chinese
Sources consulted for annotation:
BeijingReview.com.cn (Q&A with Authors), http://www.bjreview.com.cn/books/node_10094.htm.
Mishra, Pankaj. The New York Times Book Review, 4 May 2008 (online).

Yong Jin (Louis Cha). The Deer and the Cauldron: A Martial Arts Novel.
Translated by John Minford and Rachel May. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997–2002. 3 vols.
Genres/literary styles/story types: historical fiction; epics
As the reviewer on the website YellowBridge observes, Jin Yong is “the unrivaled giant of the
modern martial arts (wuxia) genre.” First serialized in a Hong Kong newspaper, his 14 novels now
appear in this three-volume book, which focuses on the ribald adventures of Trinket during the
mid-eighteenth century under the Qing dynasty. The Qing were originally Manchus, a Tartar
people, so cabals formed against them, including the Red Flower Society. According to the Yellow-
Bridge reviewer, “the book is very much like a typical Hong Kong movie where the movie director
has never bothered to decide whether the movie is a comedy or drama, a kung fu spectacular or a
tender love story, an uplifting message-filled narrative or horror movie. It is simply all of that and
it switches between them at great speed.”
Subject keyword: power
Original language: Chinese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Amazon.com (book description).
The Economist 359 (14 April 2001): 80.
YellowBridge.com (book review), http://www.yellowbridge.com.
Some other translated books written by Yong Jin: The Book and the Sword: A Martial Arts Fox
Volant of the Snowy Mountain; Heaven Sword & Dragon Sabre; The Legendary Couple

Ang Li (Li Ang). The Butcher’s Wife.

Translated by Howard Goldblatt and Ellen Yeung. London: Peter Owen, 2003. 142 pages.
90 Contemporary World Fiction

Genre/literary style/story type: mainstream fiction; women’s lives

Using Taiwan as her setting, the author fictionalizes a murder that occurred in 1930s Shanghai.
When her father dies, Lin Shi is forced for economic reasons to marry a brutal pig butcher who
delights in the screams of the pigs that he kills as well as those of his wife, whom he viciously rapes
on a regular basis. Lin Shi is thus compelled to choose between starving on the streets and putting
up with her horrific plight, which becomes even more horrific when her cries of agony during forced
sex are interpreted as expressions of selfish sexual pleasure that disturb the community. When she
hears this accusation, she pledges total silence, which only serves to increase the wrath of her hus-
band even further. The conclusion is as inevitable as it is gruesome.
Subject keywords: rural life; power
Original language: Chinese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Rogers, Michael. Library Journal 128 (15 February 2003): 174.
See, Carolyn. Los Angeles Times, 17 November 1986, p. 6.
Solomon, Charles. Los Angeles Times, 2 September 1990, p. 14.

Pi-hua Li (Lillian Lee). Farewell My Concubine (Farewell to My Concubine).

Translated by Andrea Lingenfelter. London: Penguin, 1993. 255 pages.
Genre/literary style/story type: mainstream fiction
Set against the turbulent and violent history of modern China, this novel recounts the relationship of
two men—Xiaolou Duan and Dieyi Cheng—who have been trained from childhood to be Peking
Opera performers. Xiaolou’s physical stature and power destine him for male roles, while Dieyi’s
talents are more suited for female roles. As the world of opera consumes their lives, Dieyi becomes
enamored with Xiaolou. But his feelings are unrequited when Xiaolou falls in love with a prostitute.
Subject keywords: identity; social roles
Original language: Chinese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Li, Cherry W. Library Journal 118 (15 October 1993): 89.
Liu, Timothy. Lambda Book Report 4 (November 1993): 33.
Steinberg, Sybil S. Publishers Weekly 240 (16 August 1993): 88.
Another translated book written by Pi-hua Li: The Last Princess of Manchuria

Qiao Li (Li Qiao). Wintry Night.

Translated by Taotao Liu and John Balcom. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001. 291
pages.
Genre/literary style/story type: mainstream fiction
This novel, which takes place between 1890 and 1945, chronicles the austere lives of a Chinese family
who establishes the village of Fanzai Wood in a mountainous area of Taiwan. As farmers, they must
contend with poverty and soul-destroying storms. Later, they must also deal with the complexities
of the Japanese occupation, especially when two of the grandchildren of the original settlers are forced
to join the Japanese army and sent to the Philippines, where they witness untold horrors.
Subject keyword: family histories
Original language: Chinese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Amazon.com (book description).
Kaske, Michelle. Booklist 97 (1 March 2001): 1227.
Kinkley, Jeffrey C. World Literature Today 75 (Summer 2001): 130.
Quan, Shirley N. Library Journal 126 (15 April 2001): 132.
Steinberg, Sybil S. Publishers Weekly 248 (5 February 2001): 66.
 East Asia: China, Japan, and Korea 91

Rui Li (Li Rui). Silver City.

Translated by Howard Goldblatt. New York: Metropolitan Books, 1997. 276 pages.
Genre/literary style/story type: mainstream fiction
For over a century, the Li and Bai families have struggled for supremacy in Silver City and control
of its salt mines. This book explores every aspect of the prolonged conflict between the two clans.
To say the least, it is a seething and violent animosity based on traditional blood and honor codes
that reaches a brutal nadir when a majority of the male members of the Li family are executed by
a communist firing squad in 1951.
Subject keywords: family histories; politics
Original language: Chinese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Amazon.com (review from Kirkus Reviews).
Caso, Frank. Booklist 94 (1 November 1997): 455.
Duke, Michael S. World Literature Today 73 (Winter 1999): 209.
Steinberg, Sybil S. Publishers Weekly 244 (27 October 1997): 54.
Williams, Janis. Library Journal 122 (15 October 1997): 92.

Yongping Li (Li Yung-p’ing). Retribution: The Jiling Chronicles.

Translated by Howard Goldblatt and Sylvia Li-chun Lin. New York: Columbia University Press,
2003. 246 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: mainstream fiction; women’s lives
During an annual festival in the imaginary town of Jiling, Changseng is raped while she is making
an offering to a Buddhist deity. Distraught, she commits suicide. Her husband, the local coffin
maker, unleashes a thunderclap of furious violence against the loved ones of the rapist. The book
is told from multiple perspectives, with each of the townspeople contributing their memories and
insights about the tragic events.
Subject keyword: social problems
Original language: Chinese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Amazon.com (book description).
Quan, Shirley N. Library Journal 128 (1 November 2003): 124.
Wong, Timothy C. World Literature Today 78 (September/December 2004): 85.

Xiaosheng Liang (Liang Xiaosheng). Panic and Deaf: Two Modern Satires.
Translated by Hanming Chen. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2001. 157 pages.
Genre/literary style/story type: mainstream fiction
In the first novella, Yao Chungang, whom some critics describe as a Chinese everyman along the
lines of Arthur Miller’s Willy Loman, cannot cope anymore with the mind-boggling changes of
1990s China—gradually becoming both literally and figuratively impotent. The second novella,
which for some critics has evoked Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, takes place on the day that
the protagonist is to be promoted at work. But he wakes up to the baffling reality that he can no
longer hear. Undaunted by this bizarre turn of events, he assumes his new position, implementing
ridiculous policies whose only purpose is to mask his new disability.
Subject keywords: identity; social roles
Original language: Chinese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Amazon.com (book description).
Berry, Michael. Persimmon: Asian Literature, Arts, and Culture (Winter 2002) (applicable URL no
longer works).
92 Contemporary World Fiction

Wong, Timothy C. World Literature Today 75 (Summer 2001): 130.

Another translated book written by Xiaosheng Liang: The Black Button

Lianke Yan (Yan Lianke). Serve the People!

Translated by Julia Lovell. New York: Black Cat/Grove/Atlantic, 2008. 217 pages.
Genre/literary style/story type: mainstream fiction
This novel is a combination of erotic and satiric fiction. Wu Dawang has memorized all of Mao’s
writings, and he is also an excellent cook. What additional qualities does a soldier need to get pro-
moted? As Wu begins his new job as the right-hand man of a military commander, he becomes the
object of lust of the commander’s wife. Blindly obedient, he fulfills all her needs and fantasies, serv-
ing the people as best he is able until the unexpected happens. As Liesl Schillinger writes, their
“dalliance sometimes reminds the reader (a bit) of Emma Bovary and Rodolphe, playacting at
obsession until their game, by accident, turns serious.”
Subject keywords: politics; power
Original language: Chinese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Global Books in Print (online) (reviews from Booklist, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly).
Schillinger, Liesl. The New York Times Book Review, 4 May 2008 (online).

Heng Liu (Liu Heng). Green River Daydreams.

Translated by Howard Goldblatt. New York: Grove Press, 2001. 332 pages.
Genre/literary style/story type: mainstream fiction
Guanghan Cao, a scion of a wealthy family, returns home after having attended university in France.
He brings a French engineer (nicknamed Big Road) with him in order to help him build and operate
a match factory. But Guanghan’s parents and brother have other plans for him, including marriage
to Yunan. Of course, he rebels against traditional strictures and expectations, experiments with
explosives, and joins a political rebellion. Tragedy looms when Yunan and Big Road fall in love.
Subject keywords: family histories; politics
Original language: Chinese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Amazon.com (book description).
Cooper, Tom. Library Journal 126 (15 June 2001): 104.
Johnston, Bonnie. Booklist 97 (1 June/15 June 2001): 1842.
Zaleski, Jeff. Publishers Weekly 248 (11 June 2001): 55.
Some other translated books written by Heng Liu: Black Snow: A Novel of the Beijing Demi-
monde; The Obsessed

Suola Liu (Liu Sola). Chaos and All That.

Translated by Richard King. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1994. 134 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: mainstream fiction; women’s lives
Haha Huang is currently a student in London. In order not to forget her past, she begins a novel
recounting her life during the Cultural Revolution, especially its more absurd moments. As a child,
she remembers learning how to curse in a specific way so as to gain entry into the Red Guards;
the ignominy of communal outhouses; and abstruse ideological debates surrounding the issue of
house pets.
Subject keyword: rural life
Original language: Chinese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Bogenschutz, Debbie. Library Journal 119 (1 November 1994): 110.
 East Asia: China, Japan, and Korea 93

Hassan, Ihab. World Literature Today 69 (Spring 1995): 432.

Simson, Maria. Publishers Weekly 241 (19 September 1994): 64.
Sullivan, Mary Ellen. Booklist 91 (1 November 1994): 477.
Another translated book written by Suola Liu: Blue Sky Green Sea and Other Stories

Jian Ma (Ma Jian). The Noodle Maker.

Translated by Flora Drew. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005. 181 pages.
Genre/literary style/story type: mainstream fiction
In a dystopian world where the government keeps close tabs on citizens’ private lives in a bid to
control both their deeds and thoughts, absurdity reigns: an entrepreneur opens an illegal cremato-
rium; an actress performs a suicidal act onstage; and a painter loses his creativity through a dog’s
incantation. These bizarre episodes are recounted by Sheng to his friend Vlazerim, who makes
money from selling his blood, over dinner and drinks in a claustrophobic Beijing apartment. The
novel is a biting satire that calls to mind the work of Gao Xingjian, Nikolai Gogol, Pedro Juan
Gutiérrez, and Italo Calvino.
Related title by the same author:
Readers may also wish to explore Beijing Coma, which focuses on Dai Wei, who lies in a coma in
his mother’s apartment after being injured during the Tiananmen Square revolutionary incident. He
recalls the serpentine path of his life, which has run alongside many important historical events in
the latter half of the twentieth century.
Subject keywords: politics; power
Original language: Chinese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Publishers Weekly. 251 (22 November 2004): 37.
Row, Jess. The New York Times Book Review, 13 July 2008 (online).
Seaman, Donna. Booklist 101 (1 January/15 January): 819.
Tepper, Anderson. The New York Times Book Review, 27 March 2005, p. 23.
Welin, Joel. Sarasota Herald Tribune, 3 April 2005, p. E4.
Some other translated books written by Jian Ma: Beijing Coma; Stick Out Your Tongue

Mian Mian. Candy.

Translated by Andrea Lingenfelter. Boston: Little, Brown, 2003. 279 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: mainstream fiction; coming-of-age
Sex, alcoholism, drugs, prostitution, dysfunctional relationships, and AIDS are key elements of this
book. Hong, a 19-year-old high school dropout, flees Shanghai and makes her way to a free eco-
nomic zone in pursuit of her dream of becoming a writer. But things do not work out as planned.
Compelled to work as a prostitute, she begins a dissolute life and starts a hopeless relationship with
Saining, a guitarist. Hong is a poster child of the generation that came of age in the late 1980s and
early 1990s: lost, confused, and yearning for human kindness, freedom, and truth. This novel was
banned by the Chinese government.
Subject keyword: social problems
Original language: Chinese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Areddy, Jim. Far Eastern Economic Review 167 (5 February 2004): 48.
Peiffer, Prudence. Library Journal 128 (15 May 2003): 126.
Zaleski, Jeff. Publishers Weekly 250 (26 May 2003): 46.

Yan Mo (Mo Yan). The Republic of Wine.

Translated by Howard Goldblatt. New York: Arcade, 2000. 355 pages.
94 Contemporary World Fiction

Genres/literary styles/story types: mainstream fiction; magical realism

In this highly inventive phantasmagoria, a fictitious Chinese province called Liquorland is plagued
by promiscuity, drunkenness, and cannibalism. Violence and debauchery assume such outrageous
proportions that a special investigator, Ding Gou’er, is sent from Beijing to investigate. But Ding
is dragged into the very depths of alcoholism, depravity, and depraved sex that he is supposed to
examine. Part of the novel is presented as correspondence between an esteemed writer, Mo Yan,
and a graduate student delving into the gritty details of cannibalism. As the plot unfolds, the real
and the imaginary increasingly blur.
Related title by the same author:
Readers may also enjoy Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out, in which the five narrators are animal
reincarnations of Ximen Nao, a young landowner murdered by an enraged zealot during the first
stages of the communist revolution. As Jonathan Spence points out, the book is “a kind of documen-
tary” that begins at the end of the Chinese Civil War, sweeps through the dislocations of the Cultural
Revolution, and concludes with the triumph of capitalist principles.
Subject keywords: politics; urban life
Original language: Chinese
Sources consulted for annotation:
The Economist 359 (14 April 2001): 80.
Spence, Jonathan. The New York Times Book Review, 4 May 2008 (online).
Steinberg, Sybil S. Publishers Weekly 247 (27 March 2000): 53.
Some other translated books written by Yan Mo: Red Sorghum: A Novel of China; Big Breasts
and Wide Hips; Shifu, You’ll Do Anything for a Laugh; Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out; Explo-
sions and Other Stories; The Garlic Ballads

Hualing Nie (Hualing Nieh). Mulberry and Peach: Two Women of China.
Translated by Jane Parish Yang with Linda Lappin. New York: Feminist Press at the City University
of New York, 1998. 231 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: mainstream fiction; women’s lives
After experiencing numerous political and social upheavals in the China in the period from
1940–1970, Helen Mulberry Sang flees to the United States. But life is strange and alienating in
her new country, so she develops a persona, called Peach, to help her cope. While Peach does every-
thing to integrate into the American mainstream, Mulberry resists. The book alternates between
Peach’s thoughts—contained in a letter to an immigration officer whom she is trying to outwit—
and diary entries made by Mulberry.
Subject keywords: culture conflict; social problems
Original language: Chinese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Amazon.com (book description).
Kaganoff, Penny. Publishers Weekly 234 (28 October 1988): 72.
Ofstedal, Julie. Review-Fiction, http://voices.cla.umn.edu.
Some other translated books written by Hualing Nie: Eight Stories by Chinese Women;
The Purse, and Three Other Stories of Chinese Life

Anyi Wang (Wang Anyi). The Song of Everlasting Sorrow: A Novel of Shanghai.
Translated by Michael Berry and Susan Chan Egan. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008.
440 pages.
Genre/literary style/story type: mainstream fiction
This novel follows the life of Wang Qiyao, a young woman whose photo appeared on a magazine
cover and who was subsequently one of the runner-ups in a beauty contest. Her social ascent
 East Asia: China, Japan, and Korea 95

continues as the mistress of a wealthy man, but after he dies, she experiences a rude fall, drifting
anonymously through the few remaining tumbledown and labyrinthine old neighborhoods of
Shanghai. As the city gradually takes on a modern and futuristic architectural garb and as it razes
the chaotic longtang and replaces them with gleaming towers, the novel thoughtfully considers—
in the words of Francine Prose—“the question of what endures and what remains the same,” being
“particularly illuminating and incisive on the subject of female friendship, on what draws girls and
women together and then drives them apart.”
Subject keywords: modernization; urban life
Original language: Chinese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Global Books in Print (online) (review from Publishers Weekly).
Prose, Francine. The New York Times Book Review, 4 May 2008 (online).

Shuo Wang (Wang Shuo). Please Don’t Call Me Human.

Translated by Howard Goldblatt. New York: Hyperion, 2000. 289 pages.
Genre/literary style/story type: mainstream fiction
Faced with dispiriting losses during a recent Olympics, China is determined to find a new hero to
restore its sports glory. Thus, a National Mobilization Committee is formed to identify the next big
thing. The hero-to-be is someone named Tang Yuanbao, a pedi-cab driver descended from a former
boxing legend, who is still alive at the venerable age of 111. Under the watchful eye of the Committee,
Tang is completely transformed, readied, and packaged for his expected date with fame and glory.
Will he become the long-sought-after champion and, if so, at what cost? The author has been com-
pared with Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs, among others. This novel was banned in China.
Subject keywords: politics; power
Original language: Chinese
Sources consulted for annotation:
The Economist 359 (14 April 2001): 80.
Steinberg, Sybil S. Publishers Weekly 247 (19 June 2000): 60.
Some other translated books written by Shuo Wang: Playing for Thrills; The Troubleshooters

Xi Xi. Marvels of a Floating City and Other Stories.

Translated by Eva Hung, John and Esther Dent-Young. Hong Kong: Research Centre for Transla-
tion, Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1997. 106 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: mainstream fiction; short stories
Each of the three stories in this collection limns the 1997 political transition in Hong Kong from
British to Chinese rule. The first story is about the paintings of René Magritte and their connection
to Hong Kong. The second story is a surrealist tale of a town that almost overnight becomes a
mighty pillar of economic growth. The final story is a modern version of the ancient Chinese play
Circle of Chalk, where two women go to court to determine which of them is the mother of a child.
Subject keyword: modernization
Original language: Chinese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Amazon.com (book description).
Kinkley, Jeffrey C. World Literature Today 72 (Spring 1998): 455.
Some other translated books written by Xi Xi: A Girl Like Me, and Other Stories; Flying Carpet:
A Tale of Fertillia

Lihong Xiao (Hsiao Li-Hung). A Thousand Moons on a Thousand Rivers.

Translated by Michelle Wu. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000. 304 pages.
96 Contemporary World Fiction

Genre/literary style/story type: mainstream fiction

In 1970s Taiwan, the winds of change are almost gale-force. As agriculture gives way to industriali-
zation and as traditional Buddhist values and ethics fight to retain a place in a materialistic
onslaught, Zhenguan and Daxin, childhood sweethearts, struggle with their feelings, become disil-
lusioned, and affirm their enduring love.
Subject keyword: modernization
Original language: Chinese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Donald, Colin. The Herald, 4 April 2000, p. 18.
Williams, Philip F. C. World Literature Today 74 (Summer 2000): 580.

Xinran. Sky Burial: An Epic Love Story of Tibet.

Translated by Julia Lovell and Esther Tyldesley. New York: Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, 2005. 206
pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: historical fiction; literary historical
In 1958, a few weeks after their wedding, Shu Wen’s husband Kejun joins the People’s Liberation
Army and departs for Tibet on a unification mission. Soon afterward, he is reported killed in
unknown circumstances, and Shu Wen makes a pilgrimage to Tibet, determined to uncover the
truth. She spends three decades there, unearthing unsettling facts about her husband and how he fell
victim to a clash of cultures. Shu Wen returns to China in the 1990s but finds it alien, distant, and
drenched in political and social chaos. Her journey has brought her neither peace nor closure.
Subject keywords: culture conflict; social problems
Original language: Chinese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Amazon.com (book description).
Calhoun, Ada. The New York Times Book Review, 14 August 2005, p. 14.
Publishers Weekly 252 (16 May 2005): 34.
Seaman, Donna. Booklist 101 (July 2005): 1903.

Geling Yan. The Lost Daughter of Happiness.

Translated by Cathy Silber. New York: Hyperion East, 2001. 288 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: historical fiction; literary historical
Based on a true story, this novel tells about how Fusang is kidnapped and made to work as a prosti-
tute in San Francisco’s Gold Rush Era. She is extremely popular—eventually attracting the atten-
tion of the gangster Ah Ding, who steals her away. As they try to outrun their tangled pasts, they
must steer a course through the treacherous currents of a Chinatown that is a cauldron of animosity
and violence.
Related title by the same author:
Readers may also be interested in The Uninvited, which takes place in the turbocharged world of
Chinese economic expansion. Dan manages to keep body and soul together by gate-crashing
government banquets for the free food available there. But his placid life is overturned when he
inadvertently stumbles upon political corruption.
Subject keyword: social problems
Original language: Chinese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Gambone, Philip. The New York Times Book Review, 13 May 2001 (online).
Global Books in Print (online) (reviews from Library Journal and Publishers Weekly for The Lost
Daughter of Happiness; synopsis/book jacket for The Uninvited).
Another translated book written by Geling Yan: The Uninvited
 East Asia: China, Japan, and Korea 97

Hua Yu (Yu Hua). Brothers.

Translated by Eileen Chow and Carlos Rojas. New York: Pantheon, 2009. 656 pages.
Genre/literary style/story type: mainstream fiction
This sprawling novel is nothing less than a social and cultural history of contemporary China from
the 1960s to the first decade of the twentieth century. It encompasses such key events as Mao
Zedong’s Cultural Revolution, which began in 1966, as well as the years of gung ho and ultimately
savage entrepreneurship when China opened itself up to Western-style capitalism. The two
emblematic figures of the book are Li Guangtou and his half-brother Song Gang, whose fates wildly
diverge as the social and economic underpinnings of China shift. Where Li Guangtou is a risk-
taking, gregarious, and boastful rebel, Song Gang is a humble, taciturn, and law-abiding citizen
who is content with very little. The opening pages of the novel reveal Li Guangtou’s character: In
a rudimentary and communal latrine where only a thin partition separates the women’s section from
the men’s, he is caught trying to sneak a peek at the nether regions of women by extending his body
as far down into the nausea-inducing pit as possible. He claims to have gotten a good glimpse of Lin
Hong, who is reputed to be the town’s most beautiful young woman. But when Li Guangtou sets out
to try and conquer her heart, she flatly rejects him, choosing instead to marry Song Gang because of
his steadiness and loyalty. Lin Hong’s rejection of Li Guangtou is one of the factors that inspires
him to become a successful businessman with far-flung interests. His fortune and influence grows
—a mirror image of the rollicking excesses and economic power that characterized China in the late
1990s and early 2000s. Meanwhile, Song Gang and Lin Hong stagnate—the former losing his job
and his health; the latter stuck in an old-fashioned factory whose director makes lecherous advan-
ces. Their loving and idyllic life, symbolized by the once-prestigious gleaming bicycle on which
Song Gang took Lin Hong to work each day, is now a mere nothing in comparison with the western-
ized lifestyles of their affluent neighbors, with their designer clothes and technological marvels.
Li Guangtou’s riches keep multiplying, reaching unprecedented heights when he decides to
organize a beauty contest for virgins. As the town becomes the center of international attention, it
is invaded not only by thousands of women claiming to be virgins but also by a series of charlatans
who offer artificial hymens. Easy money is made by one and all—except an increasingly frustrated
and pensive Song Gang, who realizes that Lin Hong deserves better. Thus, in an attempt to
make money for Lin Hong, he sets out on a cross-country odyssey, trying to sell penis- and
breast-enhancing creams. With Song Gang gone, his wife finally succumbs to the advances of
Li Guangtou, laying the groundwork for a tragic denouement when Song Gang returns.
Related titles by the same author:
Readers may also enjoy To Live!, which focuses on Fugui, a carefree young husband and father with
a penchant for other women. But Fugui’s insouciant life quickly turns tragic as almost everyone in
his immediate and extended family dies. Also noteworthy may be Cries in the Drizzle, which takes
up many of the same themes as Brothers, focusing on provincial life in 1970s China.
Subject keywords: family histories; politics
Original language: Chinese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Global Books in Print (online) (reviews for all novels except Brothers from Booklist, Library
Journal, and Publishers Weekly).
Mishra, Pankaj. The New York Times Magazine, 25 January 2009 (online).
Some other translated books written by Hua Yu: Cries in the Drizzle; Chronicle of a Blood
Merchant; To Live!

Ailing Zhang (Eileen Chang). Lust, Caution: The Story.

Translated by Julia Lovell. New York: Anchor Books, 2007. 68 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: thrillers; political thrillers
98 Contemporary World Fiction

Set in World War II Shanghai during its occupation by the Japanese, this noir novel features Jiazhi, a
student activist, whose undercover job it is to bring about the death of Mr. Yi, a prominent member
of the occupational government. Will her feelings for Yi prevent her from achieving her task?
Subject keywords: social problems; urban life
Original language: Chinese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Amazon.com (book description).
Dupuy, Claire. Birmingham Post, 5 January 2008, p. 18.
Some other translated books written by Ailing Zhang: Traces of Love and Other Stories; The Rice-
Sprout Song; Naked Earth: A Novel About China; Love in a Fallen City; The Rouge of the North

Dachun Zhang (Chang Ta-Chun). Wild Kids: Two Novels About Growing Up.
Translated by Michael Berry. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000. 255 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: mainstream fiction; coming-of-age
This collection of stories focuses on streetwise and consumerist Taiwanese adolescents whose disdain
for family and teachers is viscerally palpable. The first story describes the friendship between a
brother and sister as they plot and scheme to make their way through a shape-shifting urban landscape.
In the second story, 14-year-old Hou Shichun, a school dropout, runs away from home—only to find
himself involved in the chaotic life of a Taipei gang. Critics have found echoes of J. D. Salinger and
Grace Paley in these stories.
Subject keyword: urban life
Original language: Chinese
Sources consulted for annotation:
The Economist 359 (14 April 2001): 80.
Gordon, Emily. Newsday, 17 September 2000, p. B14.
McLane, Maureen. The New York Times Book Review, 17 September 2000, p. 25.
Steinberg, Sybil S. Publishers Weekly 247 (31 July 2000): 66.

Jie Zhang (Zhang Jie). As Long as Nothing Happens, Nothing Will.

Translated by Gladys Yang, Deborah J. Leonard, and Zhang Andong. New York: Grove Weidenfeld,
1991. 196 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: mainstream fiction; short stories
The absurdities of the bureaucratic mindset are deliciously exposed in this collection of stories. In a
dysfunctional hospital, patients waiting for life-saving surgery die because elevators are out of
order; nurses suffer from anemia; and doctors have enuresis. In another story, a tour leader and a
professor have stark differences of opinion about the priority that should be given to an individual’s
need to use the bathroom. In a third story, culture elites exploit a naı̈ve rural artist.
Subject keyword: social problems
Original language: Chinese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Amazon.com (review from Kirkus Reviews).
Campbell, Don G. Los Angeles Times, 4 August 1991, p. 6.
Cudar, David. W. St. Petersburg Times, 28 July 1991, p. 7D.
Steinberg, Sybil S. Publishers Weekly 238 (31 May 1991): 58.
Some other translated books written by Jie Zhang: Heavy Wings; Love Must Not Be Forgotten

Wei Zhang (Zhang Wei). The Ancient Ship.

Translated by Howard Goldblatt. New York: HarperCollins, 2008. 451 pages.
Genre/literary style/story type: historical fiction
 East Asia: China, Japan, and Korea 99

This novel focuses on three families in the town of Wali, chronicling their intertwined and tragic
stories and thus recounting the multifaceted sweep of Chinese history after 1949. As reform, coun-
terreform, and modernization movements transform daily life for everyone in Wali, the undercur-
rents and underside of the town are revealed.
Subject keywords: family histories; rural life
Original language: Chinese
Source consulted for annotation:
Global Books in Print (online) (product description; review from Booklist).

Qingwen Zheng (Cheng Ch’ing-wen). Three-Legged Horse.

Translated Carlos G. Tee and others. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. 225 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: mainstream fiction; short stories
Set in Taiwan during the twentieth century, these stories deal with universal human suffering and
affliction: alienation, lack of self-confidence, threatening authority, unhappy love, separation, and
selfishness. In one story, a young female university lecturer with a malformed hand draws strength
and comfort from coconut palms. In another story, a despotic matriarch who lost her husband at age
38 orders her daughters-in-law not to sleep with their husbands until they reach the same age. In a
third story, a former Japanese collaborator comes to terms with his past by carving three-legged
horses as he awaits death.
Subject keyword: social roles
Original language: Chinese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Cao, Guanlong. The New York Times Book Review, 7 March 1999, p. 15.
Chen Dean, Kitty. Library Journal 124 (January 1999): 161.
Columbia University Press (book review), http://cup.columbia.edu.
Spinella, Michael. Booklist 95 (15 December 1998): 724.
Steinberg, Sybil S. Publishers Weekly 245 (9 November 1998): 57.

Tianwen Zhu (Chu T’ien Wen). Notes of a Desolate Man.

Translated by Howard Goldblatt and Sylvia Li-chun Lin. New York: Columbia University Press,
1999. 169 pages.
Genre/literary style/story type: mainstream fiction
Shao is a 40-year-old Taiwanese gay man whose friend Ah Yao recently died of AIDS in Tokyo.
Together with his lover Yongjie, he copes as best he can with the omnipresent specter of death, trying
to conjure away pain, bleakness, and desolation by the act of writing.
Subject keywords: identity; social roles
Original language: Chinese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Kinkleym Jeffrey C. World Literature Today 74 (Winter 2000): 234.
Olson, Ray. Booklist 95 (1 June/15 June 1999): 1785.
Steinberg, Sybil S. Publishers Weekly 246 (24 May 1999): 66.

ANNOTATIONS FOR TRANSLATED BOOKS FROM JAPAN

Kobo Abe. Kangaroo Notebook.
Translated by Maryellen Toman Mori. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996. 183 pages.
Genre/literary style/story type: speculative fiction
The author is well-known for his surreal and nihilistic perspectives on Japanese society. His work
has been compared with that of the filmmaker David Lynch. In this novel, radishes begin to sprout
100 Contemporary World Fiction

from a man’s legs, and things only get worse when he goes to the hospital to solve this perplexing
dilemma. His hospital bed, which has a mind of its own, takes him on a trip to what appears to be
hell, where he meets a motley assortment of depraved individuals.
Related titles by the same author:
Readers may also enjoy The Ark Sakura, which focuses on an outcast who constructs what he per-
ceives to be an impregnable fortress in an abandoned quarry. He is a survivalist, and like all surviv-
alists, he is convinced that the apocalypse is coming. Thus, his next task is to select the handful of
individuals who will ride out the coming storm in his shelter. Also of interest may be The Woman
in the Dunes, where a man is tricked into living and working with a woman who lives at the bottom
of an escape-proof sandpit. Endlessly shoveling sand, he eventually reconciles himself to his fate.
The Woman in The Dunes may profitably be read in conjunction with Paul Auster’s The Music of
Chance, where two gamblers who have lost a debt to a pair of eccentric millionaires agree to build
a totally useless wall out of a seemingly never-ending heap of gargantuan stones. Eventually, they
begin to consider themselves as indentured servants.
Subject keywords: identity; social roles
Original language: Japanese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Amazon.com (book description; review from Kirkus Reviews).
Dean, Kitty Chen. Library Journal 121 (1 April 1996): 114.
Graeber, Laurel. The New York Times Book Review, 24 August 1997, p. 24.
Iwamoto, Yoskio. World Literature Today 71 (Winter 1997): 228.
Pearl, Nancy. Booklist 92 (15 April 1996): 1419.
Steinberg, Sybil S. Publishers Weekly 243 (11 March 11 1996): 44.
White, Edmund. The New York Times Book Review, 10 April 1988 (online).
Some other translated books written by Kobo Abe: The Box Man; Inter Ice Age 4; Beyond the
Curve; The Ruined Map; The Woman in the Dunes; The Ark Sakura; The Face of Another; Secret
Rendezvous

Hiroyuki Agawa. The Citadel in Spring: A Novel of Youth Spent at War.

Translated by Lawrence Rogers. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1990. 254 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: mainstream fiction; coming-of-age
Koji Obata works as a cryptographer for the Japanese navy. While stationed in China, he reads in a
newspaper that Hiroshima has been destroyed. When he returns, almost all his family is dead, and
he enters a nightmarish landscape where bleakness and violence are the normal state of affairs.
Subject keyword: war
Original language: Japanese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Samuel, Yoshiko Yokochi. The Journal of Asian Studies 50 (November 1990): 949.
Steinberg, Sybil S. Publishers Weekly 237 (30 November 1990): 56.
Some other translated books written by Hiroyuki Agawa: Devil’s Heritage; Burial in the Clouds

Shinya Arai (Arai Shinya). Shoshaman: A Tale of Corporate Japan.

Translated by Chieko Mulhern. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1991. 224 pages.
Genre/literary style/story type: mainstream fiction
This is an example of what the Japanese call a “business novel.” Michio Nakasato has worked his
way up the corporate ladder, but at what cost? He meets a former lover who has become successful
as a self-employed businesswoman—all the while raising a child whom he discovers is his own.
Thus, the inevitable soul-searching crisis occurs. Has Michio wasted his life? Is he an unimaginative
 East Asia: China, Japan, and Korea 101

and robotic drone? Has Japanese society made him the man he is, and can he do anything about it
now?
Subject keywords: identity; social problems
Original language: Japanese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Amazon.com (book description).
Goff, Janet. Japan Quarterly 39 (April 1992): 272.
Kaganoff, Penny. Publishers Weekly 238 (10 May 1991): 276.

Sawako Ariyoshi. Kabuki Dancer.

Translated by James R. Brandon. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 2001. 348 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: historical fiction; literary historical
This novel explores the history of Kabuki theater through the personal story of Okuri, her family,
dance troupe, and lovers. The history of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century—with its
violence, political machinations, and social upheaval—is a vivid presence in this book.
Subject keyword: social problems
Original language: Japanese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Amazon.com (book description; reviews from Kirkus Reviews and Publishers Weekly).
Parker, Patricia L. World Literature Today 69 (Spring 1995): 437.
Woodhouse, Mark. Library Journal 119 (1 May 1994): 135.
Some other translated books written by Sawako Ariyoshi: The Twilight Years; The Doctor’s
Wife; The River Ki

Shunshin Chin (Chin Shunshin). The Taiping Rebellion.

Translated by Joshua A. Fogel. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2001. 713 pages.
Genre/literary style/story type: historical fiction
Set in nineteenth-century China, this novel focuses on the Qing dynasty and the rebellion against it
by the Society of God Worshippers. Lian Weicai, a powerful Chinese merchant, encourages his son
to join the uprising. The book is rich in cultural, social, and political detail about the period in
question.
Subject keywords: politics; power
Original language: Japanese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Cooper, Tom. Library Journal 125 (1 September 2000): 248.
Reference and Research Book News 16 (May 2001) (from Proquest databases).
Another translated book written by Shunshin Chin: Murder in a Peking Studio

Shusaku Endo. Deep River.

Translated by Van C. Gessel. New York: New Directions, 1994. 216 pages.
Genre/literary style/story type: mainstream fiction
A group of Japanese tourists—each in their own way wounded spiritually or psychologically—
travels to India. Kiguchi, plagued by nightmarish memories of his participation in the failed Japanese
invasion of a remote part of eastern India in 1944 during World War II, wishes to pay homage to his
fallen comrades. Isobe, who failed to love his wife while she was alive, seeks her reincarnation in
the hope of making amends. Numada, a tuberculosis survivor, explores the spiritual succor that
his relationship with animals has given him. Mitsuko, who failed to seduce a young priest while
in college, searches for him among the poor and dying in Varanasi.
102 Contemporary World Fiction

Subject keywords: culture conflict; religion

Original language: Japanese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Harris, Michael. Los Angeles Times, 22 May 1995, p. 4.
Hutchison, Paul E. Library Journal 120 (15 February 1995): 180.
Schenk, Leslie. World Literature Today 70 (Winter 1996): 240.
Seaman, Donna. Booklist 91 (15 March 1995): 1307.
Some other translated books written by Shusaku Endo: The Samurai; Wonderful Fool; Scandal;
Volcano; Foreign Studies; The Final Martyrs; The Girl I Left Behind; Silence; When I Whistle; Song
of Sadness; The Golden Country

Meisei Goto. Shot by Both Sides.

Translated by Tom Gill. Oxford: Counterpoint Press, 2008. 224 pages.
Genre/literary style/story type: mainstream fiction
This novel focuses on middle-aged Akaki, an exile from North Korea now living near Soka, Japan.
But the past is all-powerful, and Akaki undertakes a journey back to North Korea, recalling the
seminal events that compelled his family to flee, visiting friends and neighbors, in the process
always keeping an eye out for the talismanic coat that was a constant companion of his youth.
Subject keyword: family histories
Original language: Japanese
Source consulted for annotation:
Global Books in Print (online) (review from Publishers Weekly).

Natsuki Ikezawa. A Burden of Flowers.

Translated by Alfred Birnbaum. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 2001. 280 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: crime fiction; suspense
Two siblings leave Japan and their less-than-fulfilling home life to carve out futures for themselves
elsewhere. Tetsuro Nishijima, a heroin addict struggling to stay sober, is framed by police in Bali,
Indonesia, and arrested on a serious drug charge. Fearing execution, he struggles to retain his sanity
as Kaoru, his sister, who has taken up residence in Paris, rushes to help her brother.
Subject keyword: family histories
Original language: Japanese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Amazon.com (book description).
Wilkinson, Joanne. Booklist 98 (15 December 2001): 704.
Woods, Paula L. Los Angeles Times, 28 February 2002, p. E3.
Zaleski, Jeff. Publishers Weekly 249 (14 January 2002): 40.
Another translated book written by Natsuki Ikezawa: Still Lives

Otohiko Kaga. Riding the East Wind.

Translated by Ian Hideo Levy. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1999. 454 pages.
Genre/literary style/story type: historical fiction
This novel focuses on the failed diplomacy leading up to Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. Ken
Kurushima’s parents are Alice, an American, and Saburo Kurushima, a Japanese diplomat who is
patterned after Saburo Kurusu, a U.S. envoy who unwittingly became part of a ploy by the Japanese
government to hide its plan of attack. Thus, Ken—who is now a Japanese fighter pilot—has to face
painful choices in every aspect of his life as a soldier and man.
Subject keyword: family histories
Original language: Japanese
 East Asia: China, Japan, and Korea 103

Sources consulted for annotation:

Amazon.com (book description; review from Kirkus Reviews).
Cooper, Tom. Library Journal 124 (December 1999): 187.
Highbridge, Dianne. The New York Times Book Review, 5 December 1999, p. 45.
Hoover, Danise. Booklist 96 (15 October. 1999): 420.
Japan Quarterly 47 (January/March 2000): 107.
Samuel, Yoshiko Yokochi. World Literature Today 74 (Spring 2000): 358.
Steinberg, Sybil S. Publishers Weekly 246 (27 September 1999): 69.

Takeshi Kaiko. Five Thousand Runaways.

Translated by Cecilia Segawa Seigle. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1987. 191 pages.
Genre/literary style/story type: mainstream fiction
In the title story, a run-of-the-mill middle-aged businessman from Tokyo who has never done
anything unpredictable or outlandish in his life suddenly disappears. In another story, an AWOL
Vietnamese soldier chooses complete social isolation instead of subservience to a degrading and
alienating conformity. Turning their backs on rigid social straitjackets, the author’s protagonists
are committed to individuality and freedom.
Subject keywords: identity; social roles
Original language: Japanese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Meras, Phyllis. Providence Journal, 27 September 1987, p. I7.
Steinberg, Sybil S. Publishers Weekly 232 (28 August 1987): 66.
Some other translated books written by Takeshi Kaiko: Into a Black Sun; Darkness in Summer;
Panic and the Runaway: Two Stories

Hitomi Kanehara. Snakes and Earrings.

Translated by David James Karashima. New York: Dutton, 2005. 120 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: mainstream fiction; coming-of-age
This novel has been compared with Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis and Trainspotting by Irvine
Welsh. It depicts the violence and haunting bleakness at the core of Japan’s youth culture through
the story of 19-year-old Lui and her lover, Ama, as they face starvation, sexual exploitation, and
desolation among the squalid circumstances of big-city life.
Subject keywords: social problems; urban life
Original language: Japanese
Sources:
Amazon.com (Audiofile; book description).
Karbo, Karen. Entertainment Weekly, 27 May 2005, p. 146.
Olson, Ray. Booklist 101 (15 April 2005): 1432.
Peiffer, Prudence. Library Journal 130 (15 March 2005): 72.

Natsuo Kirino. Out.

Translated by Stephen Snyder. New York: Random House, 2005. 416 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: crime fiction; urban fiction
Yayoi works the night shift at a factory that makes box lunches. After strangling Kenji—her abusive
husband who has squandered much of their money gambling and philandering at Tokyo nightclubs—
she turns to three of her female factory colleagues for help—Masako, Kuniko, and Yoshie—all of
whom are caught in tenuous personal circumstances of their own. With Masako taking the lead, the
three women dismember and dispose of Kenji’s body, but after the body parts are unexpectedly discov-
ered, the police arrest Satake, the yakuza-connected owner of the clubs Kenji had been frequenting.
104 Contemporary World Fiction

Satake is none too pleased because his arrest ruins his businesses. Once released, he embarks on a
doomed yet frightful course of spiraling revenge, killing Kuniko and engaging in a terrifying psycho-
logical duel with Masako, who in the meantime has decided to go into the business of dismembering
other dead corpses that members of the Japanese underworld wish to dispose of. Out has been
compared with the works of Edgar Allan Poe, Nikolai Gogol, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky, especially
Crime and Punishment. Adjectives such as stark, macabre, bleak, gruesome, grisly, and disturbing
are commonly used to describe this book. Some critics mention that Kirino’s moral vision is steeped
in such writers as Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. Despite its persistently dark overtones,
graphic violence, and sado-masochistic elements, Out is almost unanimously referred to as a noir
masterpiece—for its inventive plot, psychological insights, and withering look at corrosive political
and economic institutions.
Related titles by the same author:
The author’s 2008 novel Real World continues the noir tradition: The protagonist kills for philo-
sophical reasons. When Worm, a high school student, murders his mother, he becomes a hero in a
Japan obsessed by success and consumer goods. As Kathryn Harrison notes, Kirino’s favorite
American author is Flannery O’Connor, and she thus provides readers with “a tour through the gro-
tesque and the extreme”—in the process, outdoing Dostoyevsky in the creation of an austere moral
universe. Also of interest may be Grotesque, which centers on the murder of two aging prostitutes in
Tokyo and recounts their inexorable decline from their youthful hopes and dreams. Readers who
appreciate Kirino’s vision may also wish to explore the works of Miyuki Miyabe.
Subject keywords: social problems; urban life
Original language: Japanese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Bissy, Carrie. Booklist 99 (July 2003): 1870.
Cannon, Peter. Publishers Weekly 250 (26 May 2003): 52.
Harrison, Kathryn. The New York Times Book Review, 20 July 2008, pp. 1, 10.
Harrison, Sophie. The New York Times Book Review, 15 April 2007 (online).
Samul, Ron. Library Journal 128 (15 June 2003): 101.
Tate, Greg. The Village Voice, 17 September/23 September 2003, p. 97.
Wolff, Katherine. The New York Times Book Review, 17 August 2003, p. 16.
Some other translated books written by Natsuo Kirino: Grotesque; Soft Cheeks; Real World

Morio Kita (pseudonym). Ghosts.

Translated by Dennis Keene. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1991. 193 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: mainstream fiction; coming-of-age
This is the story of an anonymous protagonist who embarks on a search for all that he has lost. His
father and sister have died; his mother leaves him in the care of relatives; he has few possessions.
Thus, he finds grace and inner peace by collecting insects and climbing mountains. This essentially
plotless book has been compared to the work of Marcel Proust in the way that random moments and
everyday events trigger larger epiphanies.
Subject keyword: family histories
Original language: Japanese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Amazon.com (book description; review from Kirkus Reviews).
Keane, Kevin. Japan Quarterly 39 (April 1992): 259.
Perushek, D. E. Library Journal 117 (1 March 1992): 117.
Schoenberger, Karl. Los Angeles Times, 22 March 1992, p. BR2.
Steinberg, Sybil S. Publishers Weekly 238 (13 December 1991): 46.
 East Asia: China, Japan, and Korea 105

Some other translated books written by Morio Kita: The House of Nire; The Adventures
of Kupukupu the Sailor

Kenzo Kitakata. Ashes.

Translated by Emi Shimokawa. New York: Vertical, 2003. 224 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: crime fiction; urban fiction
This book is in the tradition of Japanese gangster novels. The yakuza Tanaka is beset on all sides.
One of the main leaders of the criminal syndicate is dying, so Tanaka must take proactive measures
to strengthen his place in the underworld, lest he be swept away by the violent convulsions that are
sure to shake the foundations of his criminal milieu.
Related titles by the same author:
Readers may also enjoy The City of Refuge, which centers on Koji, whose love for a woman leads
him to series of murders and even to kidnapping. Also of interest may be The Cage, in which
Takino—a former yakuza now managing a supermarket—is convinced to help others escape the
mob’s influence. Noteworthy too is Winter Sleep, in which a former prison inmate turned painter
attempts to teach an escaped prisoner the beauties of art.
Subject keyword: urban life
Original language: Japanese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Global Books in Print (online) (reviews from Library Journal for Ashes; synopsis/book jackets).
Vertical Press (book descriptions for Ashes, The Cage, and Winter Sleep), http://www.vertical-inc
.com.
Some other translated books written by Kenzo Kitakata: The City of Refuge; Winter Sleep; The
Cage; When Time Attains Thee

Satoko Kizaki. The Sunken Temple.

Translated by Carol A. Flath. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1993. 203 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: speculative fiction; fantasy
Set in the imaginary village of Hie on the northern coast of Japan’s largest island, Honshu, this
brooding story about parallel worlds is inspired by two Japanese legends. In the first legend, Taro
Urashima is a guest in the underwater kingdom of a beautiful sea princess. When he decides to
return home, he discovers that all the members of his family have perished. The second legend is
about a princess who leaves her ocean home to marry a man on land. When she becomes pregnant,
she asks her husband to promise to let her give birth in secrecy. But he does not keep his promise
and thus sees her in her true form, which causes her to abandon him and returns to the sea.
Subject keyword: identity
Original language: Japanese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Amazon.com (review from Kirkus Reviews).
Copeland, Rebecca L. Japan Quarterly 41 (April 1994): 223.
Ryan, Marleigh Grayer. World Literature Today 68 (Autumn 1994): 888.
Steinberg, Sybil S. Publishers Weekly 241 (24 January 1994): 42.
Another translated book written by Satoko Kizaki: The Phoenix Tree and Other Stories

Yumiko Kurahashi. The Woman with the Flying Head and Other Stories.
Translated by Atsuko Sakaki. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1998. 157 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: speculative fiction; paranormal
The author has been compared to Edgar Allan Poe and E. T. A Hoffman. These dark and phantasma-
goric tales—partly inspired by Noh theater, mythology, and biographical elements—explore
106 Contemporary World Fiction

aspects of the erotic and the absurd. In one story, a man places a horrific witch’s mask on his
fiancée’s face, only to see her slowly die.
Subject keyword: identity
Original language: Japanese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Lofgren, Erik R. World Literature Today 72 (Summer 1998): 689.
Steinberg, Sybil S. Publishers Weekly 244 (20 October 1997): 54.
Williams, Janis. Library Journal 122 (December 1997): 158.
Another translated book written by Yumiko Kurahashi: The Adventures of Sumiyakist Q

Kaoru Kurimoto. The Guin Saga (vol. 1: The Leopard Mask; vol. 2: Warrior in the Wilderness;
vol. 3: The Battle of Nospherus; vol. 4: Prisoner of the Lagon).
Translated by Alexander O. Smith with Elye J. Alexander (vols. 1–3); Alexander O. Smith (vol. 4).
New York: Vertical, 2003–2004.
Genres/literary styles/story types: speculative fiction; fantasy
Part fantasy, part thriller, this set of action-adventure books focuses on Remus and Rinda, royal
twins who escape from Palos, which has been invaded by the Mongaul. In the Forest of Rood, they
are rescued by Guin, a memory-less warrior who wears a leopard mask. The trio prepares to mount
resistance against the Mongaul, but fate has other plans for them.
Subject keyword: power
Original language: Japanese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Cannon, Peter. Publishers Weekly 250 (14 April 2003): 53.
Cassada, Jackie. Library Journal 128 (15 April 2003): 129.

Senji Kuroi. Life in the Cul-De-Sac.

Translated by Philip Gabriel. Berkeley, CA: Stone Bridge Press, 2001. 231 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: mainstream fiction; short stories
This book of interlinked stories depicts the lives of four families—all of whom reside on the same
street in a Tokyo suburb. Here, they struggle with alienation, futility, and a general sense of gnawing
anxiety as they go about their humdrum lives characterized by burdensome marriages, thankless
eldercare, and decaying authority structures.
Subject keywords: family histories; urban life
Original language: Japanese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Amazon.com (book description).
Barta-Moran, Ellie. Booklist 97 (15 April 2001): 1535.
Cooper, Tom. Library Journal 126 (July 2001): 124.
Iwamoto, Yoshio. World Literature Today 75 (Summer 2001): 137.
Japan Quarterly 48 (July/September 2001): 108.

Saiichi Maruya. Grass for My Pillow.

Translated by Dennis Keene. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002. 345 pages.
Genre/literary style/story type: mainstream fiction
In 1940, Shokichi Hamada does not believe in the ideals animating Japanese society and thus
refuses to be drafted to fight in World War II. Instead, he simply adopts a new identity, becoming
a vagabond peddler and salesman, going from village to village in rural Japan. Twenty years later,
Shokichi is married and has seemingly found a sinecure as a clerk in a university, but his past
catches up to him, and he experiences firsthand the costs of personal integrity.
 East Asia: China, Japan, and Korea 107

Subject keywords: identity; war

Original language: Japanese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Amazon.com (book description).
The New Yorker 78 (11 November 2002): 189.
Some other translated books written by Saiichi Maruya: Rain in the Wind: Four Stories; Singu-
lar Rebellion; A Mature Woman

Seicho Matsumoto. Inspector Imanishi Investigates.

Translated by Beth Cary. New York: Soho Press, 1989. 313 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: crime fiction; police detectives
Seicho Matsumoto is one of Japan’s most popular mystery writers; his novels have been compared
to those of Georges Simenon and P. D. James. Eitaro Imanishi—a Tokyo homicide inspector who
writes haiku, does not swear, and is the epitome of politeness—must resolve the case of a man
found beaten and crushed in a railroad stockyard.
Subject keyword: urban life
Original language: Japanese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Goff, Janet. Japan Quarterly 38 (January 1991): 110.
Johnson, George. The New York Times, 30 September 1990: A46.
Mitgang, Herbert. The New York Times, 2 September 1989: A15.
Some other translated books written by Seicho Matsumoto: Points and Lines; The Voice and
Other Stories

Miyuki Miyabe. All She Was Worth.

Translated by Alfred Birnbaum. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1996. 296 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: crime fiction; police detectives
This novel is described on the back cover as “a journey through the dark side of Japan’s consumer-
crazed society.” And indeed it is. A Tokyo police offer named Shunsuke Honma investigates the dis-
appearance of Shoko Sekine, who is really not Shoko Sekine at all but someone who has murdered
Sekine and then assumed her identity. The mystery revolves around the astronomical amounts of
debt that Japanese men and women are willing to accumulate in order to have access to luxuries.
The novel also gives insight into the intricacies of Japan’s system of residential and work-related
registration—a system that makes it difficult to escape from one’s past.
Related title by the same author:
Readers may also be interested in Crossfire, in which Junko Aoki, a beautiful young woman wants to
use her pyrokinetic abilities as a kind of a last-ditch justice system to punish the guilty and the depraved.
Thus, she inevitably meets Sergeant Chikako Ishizu, a Tokyo police officer specializing in arson.
Subject keyword: urban life
Original language: Japanese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Amazon.com (book description).
Back cover of the book.
Jefferson, Margo. The New York Times, 4 February 2005, p. C1.
Publishers Weekly 252 (28 November 2005): 26.
Samul, Ron. Library Journal 130 (December 2005): 107.
Sennett, Frank. Booklist 102 (1 January/15 January): 68.
Some other translated books written by Miyuki Miyabe: Brave Story; Crossfire; Shadow Fam-
ily; The Devil’s Whisper; The Book of Heroes; The Sleeping Dragon
108 Contemporary World Fiction

Teru Miyamoto. Kinshu: Autumn Brocade.

Translated by Roger K. Thomas. New York: New Directions, 2005. 196 pages.
Genre/literary style/story type: mainstream fiction
Aki and Yasuaki are divorced, but they meet again by chance at a resort in the mountains. Aki
divorced Yasuaki at the behest of her father when Yasuaki had an affair with a bar hostess, who
afterward committed suicide. Aki married again, but her new husband, a professor, was also
unfaithful. Her only solace is her relationship with her son, who is both mentally and physically dis-
abled. Because neither Aki nor Yasuaki have found peace in their lives, they write a series of letters
to each other, allowing them to come to terms with the past.
Subject keywords: identity; social roles
Original language: Japanese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Amazon.com (book description).
Publishers Weekly 252 (29 August 2005): 34.
Quan, Shirley N. Library Journal 130 (1 October 2005): 68.
Stirling, Claire. Calgary Herald, 4 February 2006, p. F4.
Another translated book written by Teru Miyamoto: River of Fireflies
Tsutomu Mizukami. The Temple of the Wild Geese and Bamboo Dolls of Echizen: Two Novellas.
Translated by Dennis Washburn. Champaign, IL: Dalkey Archive Press, 2008. 208 pages.
Genre/literary style/story type: mainstream fiction
To characterize these razor-sharp and mysteriously elegant tales, the Booklist reviewer asks readers
to “[i]magine a Dostoyevsky novel boiled down to pulp-thriller dimensions with no loss but, rather,
a distillation of literary merit.” In the first novella, a Buddhist priest and his mistress experience
both joys and agonies in an isolated temple in northern Japan. Inevitably, the situation becomes
unsustainable and leads to murder. In the second novella, a bamboo carver and a prostitute whom
his father used to visit begin a life together in a mountain hamlet.
Subject keywords: rural life; social roles
Original language: Japanese
Source consulted for annotation:
Global Books in Print (online) (reviews from Booklist and Publishers Weekly).

Haruki Murakami. Kafka on the Shore.

Translated by Philip Gabriel. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005. 436 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: mainstream fiction; coming-of-age
Surreal and philosophical are just some of the many adjectives applied to this novel about two vastly
different individuals on a quest to understand themselves better. As they wend their way through a
dreamlike yet ultimately real Japan, they yearn to find a fleeting serenity that is only granted to a
lucky few. On the one hand, there is 15-year-old Kafka Tamura, who runs away from home to avoid
a disturbing prophecy from coming true and eventually meets an enigmatic librarian and her no-
less-enigmatic clerk—both of whom help him grapple with and stumble toward adulthood. On the
other hand, there is the elderly Satoru Nakata, who has lost a large portion of his cognitive functions
as a result of a mysterious event during World War II and who has recently committed a murder but
can converse with cats and affect the weather.
Related title by the same author:
Readers may also enjoy After Dark, which takes place during a single night in Tokyo and features
two diametrically opposed sisters: one sleeps all the time; the other disdains anything to do
with sleep.
Subject keywords: aging; war
 East Asia: China, Japan, and Korea 109

Original language: Japanese

Sources consulted for annotation:
Amazon.com (book description; Bookmarks Magazine; all editorial reviews).
Cheuse, Alan. World Literature Today 80 (January/February 2006): 27.
Global Books in Print (online) (review from Booklist for After Dark).
Maslin, Janet. The New York Times, 31 January 2005 (online).
Miller, Laura. The New York Times Book Review, 6 February 2005 (online).
Publishers Weekly 251 (December 2004): 42.
Seymenliyska, Elena. The Guardian, 8 October 2005, p. 19.
Some other translated books written by Haruki Murakami: A Wild Sheep Chase; The Wind-Up
Bird Chronicle; Norwegian Wood; Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World; After the
Quake; The Sputnik Sweetheart; South of the Border, West of the Sun; Dance Dance Dance; The
Elephant Vanishes; Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman; After Dark

Ryu Murakami. In the Miso Soup.

Translated by Ralph McCarthy. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 2003. 180 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: crime fiction; suspense
Kenji is a self-employed tour guide in Shinjuku, a Tokyo area well-known as the epicenter of the sex
trade. Just before New Year’s Eve, he encounters a psychopathic American client named Frank,
who is possibly the world’s strongest man, not to mention a cold-blooded murderer who counts a
schoolgirl and a homeless man among his recent victims. As Kenji guides Frank through Shinjuku,
who will get the better of whom?
Related title by the same author:
Readers may also enjoy Coin Locker Babies, which focuses on two infant boys who are abandoned
by their mothers in the coin lockers of a train station. Their fates later in life are as bleak as their
beginnings. One becomes a pole vaulter whose hobbies include strange drugs and even stranger
murders; the other works as a prostitute in a chemically poisoned area outside of Tokyo until
one of his customers discovers his musical talents, setting him on the road to an ephemeral
celebrity.
Subject keywords: social problems; urban life
Original language: Japanese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Amazon.com (book description; from the inside flap).
Global Books in Print (online) (reviews from Library Journal and Publishers Weekly for Coin
Locker Babies).
Samuel, Yoshiko Yokochi. World Literature Today 78 (September/December 2004): 88.
Sennett, Frank. Booklist 100 (1 December 2003): 647.
Sittenfeld, Curtis. The New York Times Book Review, 11 January 2004, p. 20.
Some other translated books written by Ryu Murakami: Sixty-Nine; Coin Locker Babies;
Almost Transparent Blue; Piercing; Popular Hits of the Showa Era

Kenji Nakagami. The Cape and Other Stories from the Japanese Ghetto.
Translated by Eve Zimmerman. Berkeley, CA: Stone Bridge Press, 1999. 191 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: mainstream fiction; short stories
The author belongs to the burakumin caste, members of which were historically treated as outcasts;
they continue to be socially and economically disadvantaged in modern Japan. The title novella
focuses on Akiyuki, whose fate is sealed from the moment of his birth. His vagabond and
poverty-stricken father has other children, and it is almost inevitable that Akiyuki commits incest
110 Contemporary World Fiction

with one of his half-sisters, who is working as a prostitute. Critics have said that Nakagami’s fiction
contains echoes of Émile Zola and Frank Norris.
Subject keywords: family histories; urban life
Original language: Japanese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Klise, James. Booklist 95 (1 May 1999): 1577.
Morris, Mark. The New York Times Book Review, 24 October 1999, p. 23.
Samuel, Yoshiko Yokochi. World Literature Today 73 (Autumn 1999): 824.
Steinberg, Sybil S. Publishers Weekly 246 (12 April 1999): 55.
Another translated book written by Kenji Nakagami: Snakelust

Asa Nonami. The Hunter.

Translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter. New York: Kodansha America, 2007. 269 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: crime fiction; police detectives
Takako Otomichi is a female police detective whose colleagues are not accustomed to women in
their tightly knit brotherhood. Thus, her task is made all the more difficult when she investigates
the murder of a businessman who has met a fiery death. Of course, it is no ordinary death, and, of
course, it is no ordinary suspect when suspicion falls on a ferocious dog-wolf who has been trained
to viciously attack its victims.
Related title by the same author:
Readers may also enjoy Now You’re One of Us, which explores the life of Noriko, a new bride who
is uncertain of her place in her husband’s family, especially when she learns that her in-laws were
complicit in the murder of at least one other family.
Subject keyword: urban life
Original language: Japanese
Source consulted for annotation:
Global Books in Print (online) (reviews from Booklist, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly).
Some other translated books written by Asa Nonami: Now You’re One of Us; Body

Kenzaburo Oe. Somersault.

Translated by Philip Gabriel. New York: Grove Press, 2003. 570 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: thrillers; political thrillers
This book was inspired by the 1995 sarin gas attack (by the religious cult Aum Shinrikyo) in Tokyo
that killed 12 people and injured hundreds more. In this novel, a cult led by Patron and Guide is
riven by factionalism—so much so that when its radical wing makes plans to take over a nuclear
plant, the leaders renounce their beliefs. But 10 years later, when the radical wing murders Guide,
Patron resurrects what is left of the cult and makes deadly plans to announce its rebirth. In the best
traditions of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, the novel deals with thorny questions about faith, duplicity, and
the power of charismatic individuals.
Related title by the same author:
Readers may also enjoy The Changeling, a novel which is partly based on Oe’s psychological and
emotional relationship with his brother-in-law, Goro, before and after he committed suicide. As
he listens to the recordings that Goro made, Oe’s own life becomes tantalizingly real.
Subject keywords: religion; social problems
Original language: Japanese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Amazon.com (book description; all editorial reviews).
Cameron, Lindsley. The New Yorker 72 (14 October 1996): 44.
“Oe Kenzaburo.” Contemporary Authors Online. Gale databases, 2006.
 East Asia: China, Japan, and Korea 111

Olson, Ray. Booklist 99 (1 December 2002): 629.

Quan, Shirley N. Library Journal 127 (December 2003): 180.
Zaleski, Jeff. Publishers Weekly 250 (6 January 2003): 36.
Some other translated books written by Kenzaburo Oe: Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids; An Echo
of Heaven; Rouse Up O Young Men of the New Age!; Teach Us To Outgrow Our Madness: Four
Short Novels; A Quiet Life; The Crazy Iris and Other Stories of the Atomic Aftermath; The Pinch
Runner Memorandum; A Healing Family; A Personal Matter; The Silent Cry; The Catch and Other
War Stories; The Changeling

Yoko Ogawa. The Housekeeper and the Professor.

Translated by Stephen Snyder. New York: Picador, 2009. 192 pages.
Genre/literary style/story type: mainstream fiction
Seemingly every critic alive has raved about this book, which has been variously described as
charming, radiant, elegant, gorgeous, poignant, and touching. The plot concerns a mathematics
teacher whose cognitive functions are severely impaired after a car accident in 1975. Although he
can remember theorems that he developed 30 years ago, his short-term memory does not extend
past 80 minutes. He lives in a cottage located on the property of his elderly sister-in-law, who
despairs of finding someone to take care of him. Indeed, nine housekeepers from the Akebono
Housekeeping Agency have already quit, overwhelmed by the arduousness and strangeness of the
task. But then, in 1992, along comes the 10th housekeeper, a single mother with a 10-year-old son
whom the professor takes to calling Root. As the housekeeper prepares his meals and cleans the cot-
tage, a compelling and profound relationship develops among these three individuals. As they intro-
duce themselves and reintroduce themselves again after each block of 80 minutes; as Root begins to
spend more time with the professor; as the professor attempts to remember things by pinning notes
to his suit; and as the professor eloquently holds forth on the meaning of random numbers (e.g., the
housekeeper’s birthday, the uniform number of his favorite baseball player), a mysterious and inter-
connected universe slowly unfolds.
Related title by the same author:
Readers may also enjoy Hotel Iris. Mari, a 17-year-old girl, works at her mother’s small, dilapidated
hotel. She falls in love with a poverty-stricken and widowed translator whom they have had to expel
from the hotel for dissolute behavior and with whom she begins a torrid, violent, and dangerous
affair.
Subject keywords: aging; identity
Original language: Japanese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Overbye, Dennis. The New York Times Book Review, 1 March 2009 (online).
Picador Macmillan website, http://us.macmillan.com/Picador.aspx.
Some other translated books written by Yoko Ogawa: The Diving Pool; Hotel Iris

Hikaru Okuizumi. The Stones Cry Out.

Translated by James Westerhoven. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1998. 138 pages.
Genre/literary style/story type: mainstream fiction
Tsuyoshi Manase has horrific memories of a tragic event that occurred on the Philippine island of
Leyte at the end of World War II: Sick and dying Japanese soldiers were executed in a cave. A book-
seller by trade, he devotes his spare time to geology, neglects his family, and is generally miserable.
But Manase is brutally dragged back to reality when one of his sons is killed in a cave. As the past
presses in on the present, questions begin to be raised about Manase’s complicity in his son’s
murder.
Subject keywords: family histories; war
112 Contemporary World Fiction

Original language: Japanese

Sources consulted for annotation:
Amazon.com (book description; review from Kirkus Reviews).
Ferguson, William. The New York Times Book Review, 4 July 1999, p. 15.
Johnston, Bonnie. Booklist 95 (15 November 1998): 568.
Parker, Patricia. World Literature Today 73 (Autumn 1999): 825.
Quan, Shirley N. Library Journal 123 (15 October 1998): 100.
Steinberg, Sybil S. Publishers Weekly 245 (7 December 1998): 50.

Arimasa Osawa. Shinjuku Shark.

Translated by Andrew Clare. New York: Vertical, 2008. 288 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: crime fiction; police detectives
Samejima is an aloof and ostracized Tokyo police detective whose overly persistent pursuit of
yakuza corruption relegates him to patrol duty. With no partner and no career-advancement pros-
pects, his only satisfaction comes from his zealously compulsive approach to hunting criminals as
well as the fact that he has inside information that would damage the credibility of the police force.
When police officers start being killed in pairs, only Samejima’s relentless efforts can save the day.
Also of interest may be The Poison Ape, in which Samejima finds himself thrust into the middle of
the Taiwanese underworld.
Subject keyword: urban life
Original language: Japanese
Source consulted for annotation:
Global Books in Print (online) (reviews from Booklist, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly for
Shinjuku Shark; synopsis/book jacket for The Poison Ape).
Another translated book written by Arimasa Osawa: The Poison Ape

Kappa Senoo (Kappa Senoh). A Boy Called H: A Childhood in Wartime Japan.

Translated by John Bester. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1999. 528 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: mainstream fiction; coming-of-age
The title of this novel gives a good summary of its contents but not its enduring power. What was it
like for H to live in Kobe both before and during the war? What changed? How does a child and
young adolescent understand and cope with those changes? What happened to his friends and fam-
ily as a result of the war? What social habits and mores were irretrievably lost? What was the
psychological and emotional impact of strictly enforced wartime regulations? The novel presents
answers to these questions from a child’s perspective, making them all the more powerful and stark.
Subject keywords: family histories; war
Original language: Japanese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Levine, Steven I. Library Journal 125 (1 April 2000): 113.
Noguchi, Mary Goebel. Japan Quarterly 47 (April/June 2000): 98.
Rochman, Hazel. Booklist 96 (15 February 2000): 1084.
Zaleski, Jeff et al. Publishers Weekly 247 (14 February 2000): 182.

Harumi Setouchi. The End of Summer.

Translated by Janine Beichman in collaboration with Alan Brender. Tokyo: Kodansha International,
1989. 151 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: mainstream fiction; short stories
This collection of four stories examines various aspects of a strange love triangle. Tomoko is an
interior designer who is having an affair with Shingo, a married man whose wife interacts with
 East Asia: China, Japan, and Korea 113

him only on such rare occasions as holidays and family gatherings. But then Tomoko restarts a
liaison with Ryota, a man with whom she had a relationship in the past that broke up her marriage.
When she subsequently runs into Shingo with his wife, the tangle and tension of her romantic life
intensifies.
Subject keywords: identity; social roles
Original language: Japanese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Brettschneider, Cathie. Belles Lettres 5 (Summer 1990): 20.
Solomon, Charles. Los Angeles Times, 9 May 1993, p. 13.
Another translated book written by Harumi Setouchi: Beauty in Disarray

Ryotaro Shiba. The Last Shogun: The Life of Tokugawa Yoshinobu.

Translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1998. 255 pages.
Genre/literary style/story type: historical fiction
The title of this book says it all, and critics have said that this detailed and wide-ranging historical
novel brings to mind the works of James Michener. It follows Yoshinobu’s early education at the
hands of his father; his eventual ascent to power in 1867; his accomplishments as Shogun, including
his establishment of international ties during a period of Japanese isolationism and his westerniza-
tion of the government.
Subject keywords: politics; power
Original language: Japanese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Amazon.com (all editorial reviews).
Goff, Janet. Japan Quarterly 46 (January 1999): 105.
Stuttaford, Genevieve, et al. Publishers Weekly 245 (20 April 1998): 53.
Tanabe, Kunio Francis. The Washington Post, 19 July 1998, p. X9.
Some other translated books written by Ryotaro Shiba: Kukai the Universal: Scenes from His
Life; Drunk as a Lord: Samurai Stories

Soji Shimada. The Tokyo Zodiac Murders.

Translated by Ross and Shika MacKenzie. Tokyo: IBC Publishing, 2004. 251 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: crime fiction; private investigators
Kiyoshi Mitarai is not only a private detective but also an astrologer. These dual skills come in
handy when he attempts to solve a series of bizarre murders apparently committed by the artist
Heikichi Umezawa some 40 years ago. Umezawa was obsessed with discovering the essence of
beauty, so he killed many of his female relatives to create a woman (Azoth) who would be the
embodiment of perfection. Aided by a series of maps and other clues scattered throughout the book,
readers are encouraged to solve the so-called Zodiac Murders alongside Mitarai.
Subject keyword: identity
Original language: Japanese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Amazon.com (book description).
Samul, Ron. Library Journal 130 (August 2005): 60.

Ikko Shimizu. The Dark Side of Japanese Business: Three Industry Novels.
Translated by Tamae K. Prindle. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1995. 277 pages.
Genre/literary style/story type: mainstream fiction
Industry or business novels are a well-known genre in Japan. The drama of internal corporate strug-
gles and financial machinations; the fight to retain a vestige of independence in the face of
114 Contemporary World Fiction

takeovers, corruption, and brutal battles over market share; and the personal cost of devoting one’s
life to the never-satisfied maw of ambition and profitability—these are the elements that make the
genre a compelling force in Japan. In North America, a comparable genre is the corporate (or busi-
ness) thriller. Thus, readers who liked Joseph Finder’s Paranoia and Company Man may be open to
Shimizu’s works.
Subject keyword: power
Original language: Japanese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Sawhill, Ray. The New York Times Book Review, 13 October 1993, p. 35.
Sender, Henry. Far Eastern Economic Review, 18 April 1996, p. 69.

Junzo Shono. Evening Clouds.

Translated by Wayne P. Lammers. Berkeley, CA: Stone Bridge Press, 2000. 222 pages.
Genre/literary style/story type: mainstream fiction
If you are tired of action novels or hip treatises about bleak urban landscapes, you will love this
novel. It depicts domestic moments in the life of the Oura family on the outskirts of Tokyo. There
is almost no drama—just a series of moments that capture the grace of a quiet existence, when
one has found inner peace and when one lives in harmony with the environment. No pleasure is
too simple or too prosaic; everything becomes endowed with an abiding elegance and perfection,
including eating, cooking, gardening, and watching the ever-changing sky with its scudding clouds.
Subject keywords: family histories; urban life
Original language: Japanese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Amazon.com (book description).
Johnston, Bonnie. Booklist 96 (15 May 2000): 1731.
Publishers Weekly 247 (15 May 2000): 88.
Ryan, Marleigh Grayer. World Literature Today 75 (January 2001): 108.
Another translated book written by Junzo Shono: Still Life and Other Stories

Ayako Sono. No Reason for Murder.

Translated by Edward Putzar. New York: ICG Muse, 2003. 422 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: crime fiction; suspense
Fujio Uno is everyone’s worst nightmare: an alienated misfit who is a gruesome serial killer. Yukiko
Hata is probably the only woman whom he has been unable to seduce, and it is for this reason that
he sees her as a beacon of hope in his wretched life. But her principles and morality lead to her
downfall.
Subject keyword: urban life
Original language: Japanese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Amazon.com (book description).
Mansfield, Stephen. The Japan Times, 21 March 2004 (from Factiva databases).
Stone Bridge Press. Heian Books (book description), http://www.stonebridge.com.
Another translated book written by Ayako Sono: Watcher from the Shore

Koji Suzuki. Dark Water.

Translated by Glynne Walley. New York: Vertical, 2004. 279 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: speculative fiction; horror
As Jeff Zaleski writes, Suzuki is sometimes referred to as a Japanese Stephen King for his tales of
“quiet psychological terror” that explore “the darkness within the human psyche.” They are filled
 East Asia: China, Japan, and Korea 115

with an “understated dread” and “a sort of creepy normality” because he infuses “everyday settings”
with “horrific supernatural events.” In this collection, all the stories center around water: drips,
leaks, islands, underwater caves. Because the most normal of settings give rise to the strangest
events, there is an eerie sense of foreboding and fear on almost every page.
Subject keyword: identity
Original language: Japanese
Sources consulted for annotation:
The Complete Review (book review), http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/japannew/
suzukik3.htm.
Zaleski, Jeff. Publishers Weekly 251 (11 October 2004): 58.
Some other translated books written by Koji Suzuki: Ring; Spiral; Loop

Randy Taguchi. Outlet.

Translated by Glynne Walley. New York: Vertical, 2003. 269 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: crime fiction; amateur detectives
Yuki Asakura’s brother Taka is dead—the apparent victim of starvation. Determined to find out the
true circumstances surrounding his death, Yuki makes strange discoveries about herself: She can
smell death on others, and she can also heal through sex.
Subject keyword: identity
Original language: Japanese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Amazon.com (all editorial reviews).
Publishers Weekly 250 (29 September 2003): 43.
Woodhead, Cameron. The AGEReview, 26 June 2004, p. 5.

Akimitsu Takagi. Honeymoon to Nowhere.

Translated by Sadako Mizuguchi. New York: Soho Press, 1995. 277 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: crime fiction; private investigators
Etsuko Ogata does not want to enter into an arranged marriage with Tetsuya Higuchi, a lawyer
selected by her father. Instead, she becomes the fiancée of the university teacher Yoshihiro
Tsukamoto. Her father is not pleased, and he employs the services of a private investigator to
discover her fiancée’s family history. And what a history it is: links to a war criminal and arson. This
disturbing information does not dissuade Etsuko from marrying Yoshihiro, but on the first night of
their honeymoon, a mysterious phone call draws him from her side and out into the night. Yoshihiro
is later found strangled to death, and Saburo Kirishima, a long-ago flame of Etsuko, must solve the
crime. The author is consistently said to be among the front rank of Japan’s crime writers.
Subject keyword: family histories
Original language: Japanese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Amazon.com (book description; all editorial reviews).
Herbert, Rosemary. Boston Herald, 18 July 1999, p. 78.
Munger, Katy. The Washington Post, 25 July 1999, p. X8.
Williams, Janis. Library Journal 124 (August 1999): 147.
Zaleski, Jeff. Publishers Weekly 246 (31 May 1999): 71.
Some other translated books written by Akimitsu Takagi: The Tattoo Murder Case; No Patent
on Murder; The Informer

Genichiro Takahashi. Sayonara, Gangsters.

Translated by Michael Emmerich. New York: Vertical, 2004. 311 pages.
116 Contemporary World Fiction

Genres/literary styles/story types: mainstream fiction; postmodernism

Somewhere in the future, names have disappeared. People just do not have them anymore. Thus, to
avoid confusion, people begin naming themselves and each other according to meaningful things in
their lives. One woman calls herself “Nakajima Miyuki Song Book” and a poetry teacher christens
himself “Sayonara, Gangsters.” After an opening section dealing with the death of the daughter of
“Sayonara, Gangsters” from a previous marriage, the novel focuses on life at the poetry school,
where famous Latin poets have become household appliances and where gangsters yearning to
write poetry are killed by squads of police.
Subject keyword: identity
Original language: Japanese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Amazon.com (book description).
The Japan Times, 18 July 2004 (from Factiva databases).
Keeley, Brian. Far Eastern Economic Review, 4 November 2004, p. 63.
Sugiyama, Chiyono. The Daily Yomiuri, 27 June 2004, p. 20.
Zaleski, Jeff. Publishers Weekly 251 (29 March 2004): 3.

Takako Takahashi. Lonely Woman.

Translated by Maryellen Toman Mori. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004. 155 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: mainstream fiction; feminist fiction
Each of the five stories in this collection limns the desolation experienced by young, single Japanese
women. On the borderline of madness and struggling to find meaning in a nihilistic universe, they
often confront nightmarish situations with bone-chilling and terror-inducing solutions.
Subject keyword: identity
Original language: Japanese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Amazon.com (book description).
Beichman, Janine. The Washington Times, 30 May 2004, p. B8.
Leber, Michele. Booklist 100 (1 March 2004): 1135.
Richie, Donald. The Japan Times, 18 January 2004 (from Factiva databases).

Yoshihiro Tatsumi. A Drifting Life.

Translated by Taro Nettleton. Montréal, PQ: Drawn & Quarterly Publications, 2009. 855 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: graphic novels; coming-of-age
Critics generally agree that Tatsumi is one of the masters of manga. He tells poignant stories about
life in Japan after World War II. Not only does he write sensitively about the psychological and
emotional repercussions of Hiroshima, but he also focuses in short story collections—such as Aban-
don the Old in Tokyo—on those sad and lonely individuals who were not part of Japan’s economic
ascendancy in the 1970s. His masterpiece is the autobiographical A Drifting Life, which in addition
to being a social and cultural history of the tragedies and absurdities of Japanese life is also a worthy
descendant of James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Readers may wish to compare
Tatsumi’s work with one of the relatively little-known pioneers of American graphic novels, Lynd
Ward, whose six woodcut novels—all produced in the late 1920s and 1930s—are Gods’ Man, Mad-
man’s Drum, Wild Pilgrimage, Prelude to a Million Years, Song Without Words, and Vertigo. Lynd’s
novels are now available in two volumes in the Library of America series.
Subject keywords: politics; urban life
Original language: Japanese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Garner, Dwight. The New York Times, 15 April 2009 (online).
 East Asia: China, Japan, and Korea 117

Global Books in Print (online) (reviews for all books from Booklist, Library Journal, and
Publishers Weekly).
Some other translated books written by Yoshihiro Tatsumi: Good-Bye; Abandon the Old in
Tokyo; Infierno; The Push Man and Other Stories

Yuko Tsushima. Woman Running in the Mountains.

Translated by Geraldine Harcourt. New York: Pantheon, 1991. 275 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: mainstream fiction; coming-of-age
Takiko is unmarried and pregnant, but she is determined to keep her baby despite the fierce resis-
tance of her unsupportive and often violent family. Set in a cut-throat consumerist society that dis-
approves of moral lapses, Takiko experiences a kind of inner freedom at the same time that she
becomes a social outcast. When she meets a man with a Down syndrome child, she may have finally
found a true emotional home.
Subject keywords: family histories; social problems
Original language: Japanese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Mitgang, Herbert. The New York Times, 23 March 1991, p. 15.
Rubin, Merle. The Christian Science Monitor, 14 May 1991, p. 13.
Some other translated books written by Yuko Tsushima: The Shooting Gallery & Other Stories;
Child of Fortune

Yasutaka Tsutsui. Salmonella Men on Planet Porno and Other Stories.

Translated by Andrew Driver. New York: Pantheon Books, 2008. 272 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: speculative fiction; postmodernism
The reviewer in Library Journal called this metafictional collection “a cross between the music
group the B-52s, Thomas Pynchon’s V., Ryu Murakami’s Coin Locker Babies, and James Turner’s
graphic novel Nil: A Land Beyond Belief.” One eccentric story follows another: Scientists discover
a planet where literally everything is about sex; a tree determines dreams; everyone stops smoking;
the media become obsessed with the trivial life of a dull man; and an efficiency consultant destroys
the last vestiges of happiness. Strange as it may seem, Tsutsui’s work has some affinities with that
of José Saramago; they both ask the question “What would happen if . . . ?”
Related titles by the same author:
Readers may also enjoy What the Maid Saw: Eight Psychic Tales, which focuses on Nanase, an
18-year-old maid who is telepathic but is doomed to live among the petty cares, cavils, and concerns
of her employers. In one scene, she saves herself from rape by bouncing a would-be rapist’s evil
thoughts back at him and subsequently driving him to madness. Also of interest may be Hell, in
which the author envisions hell as an emotionless place where the mere act of thinking of someone
conjures up that person.
Subject keyword: social roles
Original language: Japanese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Bohoslawec, Piero. The Financial Times, 13 October 2007 (online).
Global Books in Print (online) (reviews from Library Journal and Publishers Weekly).
Lezard, Nicholas. The Guardian, 11 October 2008 (online).
McCaffery, Larry, and Gregory, Sinda. Review of Contemporary Fiction 22 (1 July 2002): 202.
Regier, Kerry. The Vancouver Sun, 20 October 1990, p. D19.
Some other translated books written by Yasutaka Tsutsui: What the Maid Saw: Eight Psychic
Tales; The African Bomb and Other Stories; Portraits of Eight Families; Hell; A Girl Who Runs
Through Time
118 Contemporary World Fiction

Eimi Yamada (Amy Yamada). Trash.

Translated by Sonya Johnson. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1994. 372 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: mainstream fiction; women’s lives
Koko, a Japanese woman, lies handcuffed in bed, contemplating her life—which revolves around an
African-American lover and his teenage son. The bustle and excitement of New York have not given
her what she wants—only a vague sense of doom and addiction.
Subject keywords: culture conflict; social roles
Original language: Japanese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Bumiller, Elisabeth. The Washington Post, 1 June 1991, p. D1.
Steinberg, Sybil S. Publishers Weekly 241 (7 November 1994): 64.
Vicarel, Jo Ann. Library Journal 119 (December 1994): 136.
Vivinetto, Gina. St. Petersburg Times, 30 April 1995, p. 6D.
Some other translated books written by Eimi Yamada: Bedtime Eyes; After School Keynotes

Taichi Yamada. Strangers.

Translated by Wayne P. Lammers. New York: Vertical, 2003. 203 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: speculative fiction; horror/paranormal
Hideo Harada is a scriptwriter, middle-aged, divorced, and estranged from his 19-year-old son; he eats
and sleeps in his office. Orphaned at age 12, Hideo returns one day to Asakusa, his childhood neighbor-
hood, where he meets his dead father, who takes Hideo home with him to see his mother. Hideo returns
again and again to spend time with his deceased family. Only when Kei, his girlfriend, comments that
he has become much more pale of late does Hideo realize that there is something wrong with his life.
Subject keywords: family histories; urban life
Original language: Japanese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Poole, Steven. The Guardian, 5 March 2005, p. 27.
Riordan, Kate. Time Out, 13 January 2005, p. 65.
Thwaite, Anthony. The Sunday Telegraph, 13 February 2005, p. 16.
Another translated book written by Taichi Yamada: In Search of a Distant Voice

Seishi Yokomizo. The Inugami Clan.

Translated by Yumiko Yamazaki. Berkeley, CA: Stone Bridge Press, 2007. 309 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: crime fiction; police detectives
The author is one of Japan’s most popular crime writers. This novel features Detective Kindaichi
and takes place in the 1940s against a background of gangland murders and revenge killings.
Subject keyword: urban life
Original language: Japanese
Source consulted for annotation:
Global Books in Print (online) (synopsis).

Banana Yoshimoto. Goodbye, Tsugumi.

Translated by Michael Emmerich. New York: Grove Press, 2002. 186 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: mainstream fiction; coming-of-age
While waiting for Maria’s father to divorce his wife, Maria and her unmarried mother are living and
working in a seaside inn operated by Maria’s aunt and uncle. The story focuses on the developing
relationship between Maria and Tsugumi, her sickly and spoiled cousin.
Subject keyword: family histories
Original language: Japanese
 East Asia: China, Japan, and Korea 119

Sources consulted for annotation:

Amazon.com (book description).
Freeman, John. St. Petersburg Times, 4 August 2002, p. 4D.
Reale, Michelle. Library Journal 127 (15 June 2002): 98.
Spurling, John. The Sunday Times, 18 August 2002 (from Factiva databases).
Wynn, Judith Boston Herald, 15 September 2002, p. 038.
Zaleski, Jeff. Publishers Weekly 249 (8 July 2002): 29.
Some other translated books written by Banana Yoshimoto: Kitchen; Asleep; NP; Lizard; Hard-
boiled & Hard Luck; Amrita

Akira Yoshimura. Storm Rider.

Translated by Philip Gabriel. New York: Harcourt, 2004. 367 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: adventure; quest
When Hikotaro, a 13-year-old orphan, is pulled from a raging sea by American sailors, he is taken
to San Francisco. Rechristened Hikozo, he yearns for his homeland. But he is unable to return
because of a law forbidding Japanese who have lived abroad to re-enter Japan. A rich American
adopts Hikozo, giving him the privileges and power he never dreamed of. The U.S. Civil War, the
Taiping Rebellion, and the Meiji Restoration figure prominently as background material.
Subject keyword: family histories
Original language: Japanese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Amazon.com (book description).
Green, Roland. Booklist 100 (1 May 2004): 1548.
Keeley, Brian. Far Eastern Economic Review, 9 September 2004, p. 55.
Zaleski, Jeff. Publishers Weekly 251 (22 March 2004): 59.
Some other translated books written by Akira Yoshimura: On Parole; Shipwrecks; One Man’s
Justice

Miri Yu. Gold Rush.

Translated by Stephen Snyder. New York: Welcome Rain, 2002. 286 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: crime fiction; suspense
The corruption, hypocrisy, and desolation of contemporary Japanese society are stunningly laid
bare in this intensely violent novel that has evoked comparisons with Dostoyevsky’s Crime and
Punishment. Fourteen-year-old Kazuki Yuminaga murders his abusive father in order to take over
his gambling empire. But things are not that simple: He must contend with his father’s girlfriend
and opposition from company executives.
Subject keyword: urban life
Original language: Japanese
Sources consulted for annotation:
Amazon.com (book description).
Olson, Ray. Booklist 98 (1 May 2002): 1485.
Quan, Shirley N. Library Journal 127 (1 May 2002): 136.
Zaleski, Jeff. Publishers Weekly 249 (25 March 2002): 38.

ANNOTATIONS FOR TRANSLATED BOOKS FROM KOREA

Chong-nae Cho (Cho Chong-Rae). Playing with Fire.
Translated by Chun Kyung-Ja. Ithaca, NY: East Asia Program, Cornell University, 1997. 188 pages.
Genre/literary style/story type: mainstream fiction
120 Contemporary World Fiction

Hwang is a happily married father and businessman. At the end of a seemingly ordinary work day,
he receives a telephone call from a man who knows his dark and secret past as Bae Jamsu. Hwang is
the name he gave himself after the end of the war to hide not only his communist past but also his
part in the death of 39 members of a rival family. But the son of one of the murdered members of
this family has tracked Bae Jamsu down and begins to exact revenge.
Subject keyword: war
Original language: Korean
Sources consulted for annotation:
Amazon.com (book description).
Crown, Bonnie R. World Literature Today 72 (Winter 1998): 212.
Another translated book written by Chong-nae Cho: The Land of the Banished

Son-jak Cho (Cho Sun Jak). The Preview and Other Stories.
Translated by Kim Chan Young and David R. Carter. Fremont, CA: Asian Humanities Press, 2003.
243 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: mainstream fiction; short stories
The ostensibly successful economic development of South Korea in the postwar era conceals a
harsh reality: endemic poverty, moral corruption, and the failure to see beyond the comforting rhet-
oric of achievement and glory that laid the groundwork for the often gaudy excesses of a
consumption-obsessed society. These stories capture that multidimensional hypocrisy, focusing on
marginalized individuals and social misfits.
Subject keyword: social problems
Original language: Korean
Source consulted for annotation:
Amazon.com (book description).

Mu-suk Han (Hahn Moo-Sook). And So Flows History.

Translated by Young-Key Kim-Renaud. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2005. 282
pages.
Genre/literary style/story type: historical fiction
The Cho family was once a mighty clan, but when the family patriarch rapes a young slave, its
downfall begins. Focusing on three generations of the Chos, the book paints a vivid portrait of
Korean history, including the Donghak Peasant Revolution in 1894 and the 35-year-long Japanese
occupation of Korea in the first part of the twentieth century. Important questions such as national-
ism and the nature of class struggle are invoked, as are the effects of westernization, especially mis-
sionary work.
Subject keyword: family histories
Original language: Korean
Sources consulted for annotation:
Amazon.com (about the author; book description).
Back cover of the book.
Carolan, T. Choice 43 (February 2006): 1011.
Some other translated books written by Mu-suk Han: Encounter: A Novel of Nineteenth-
Century Korea; The Hermitage of Flowing Water and Nine Others; In the Depths

Sung-won Han (Han Sung-won). Father and Son.

Translated by Yu Young-nan and Julie Pickering. Dumont, NJ: Homa & Sekey Books, 2002. 285
pages.
Genre/literary style/story type: mainstream fiction
 East Asia: China, Japan, and Korea 121

This book examines the social, historical, intellectual, and emotional legacy left by parents to their
children in an age of rapid industrialization. The poet and publisher Chu-ch’ôl despairs about his
rebellious and disrespectful son Yun-gil. When Chu-ch’ôl and his wife attend the funeral of
Chu-ch’ôl’s brother, both are anxious not only because Yun-gil is being sought by government
authorities but also because Chu-ch’ôl’s cousin Chu-ôn, a government agent, will be at the funeral.
How could father and son have become such strangers?
Subject keywords: family histories; social problems
Original language: Korean
Sources consulted for annotation:
Amazon.com (book description).
Young-nan, Yu. The translators’ note to the book.

Sog-yong Hwang (Hwang Sok-yong). The Guest.

Translated by Kyung-Ja Chun and Maya West. New York: Seven Stories Press, 2005. 237 pages.
Genre/literary style/story type: mainstream fiction
After the Korean War, two brothers immigrate to the United States. But they cannot so easily leave
their memories behind. Horrific violence is a constant presence in their lives. When one of the
brothers dies, the other returns to Korea—only to discover that his dead brother was involved in
the bloodshed.
Related title by the same author:
In The Old Garden, a political prisoner is released after 18 years in captivity. Obviously, nothing is
as he remembers it, so he becomes a wandering lost soul among the catacombs of modernity, hoping
to discover the wellsprings of his youthful passion for rebellion.
Subject keyword: war
Original language: Korean
Sources consulted for annotation:
Donovan, Deborah. Booklist 102 (15 October 2005): 30.
Global Books in Print (online) (synopsis/book jacket).
Publishers Weekly 252 (29 August 2005): 31.
Ramzy, Austin. Time International 167 (9 January 2006): 47.
Some other translated books written by Sog-yong Hwang: The Shadow of Arms; The Old
Garden

Sok-kyong Kang (Kang Sok-Kyong). The Valley Nearby.

Translated by Choi Kyong-do. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1997. 317 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: mainstream fiction; women’s lives
This novel traces the passionate and persistent attempts of a rural woman to balance traditions and
her yearning for freedom; her resistance to the socially expected role of an obedient housewife; and
her hope for a better future for her daughter. As noted by Bonnie R. Crown, the book is especially
valuable “for its descriptions and discussions of Korean esthetics, the making of pottery, folk art,
nature and the environment, food, Buddhism, and other aspects of Korean culture.”
Subject keywords: family histories; social roles
Original language: Korean
Sources consulted for annotation:
Amazon.com (book description).
Crown, Bonnie R. World Literature Today 72 (Summer 1998): 694.

Chu-yong Kim (Kim Joo-young). The Sound of Thunder.

Translated by Chun Kyung-Ja. Seoul, Korea: Si-sa-yong-o-sa, 1990. 326 pages.
122 Contemporary World Fiction

Genres/literary styles/story types: mainstream fiction; women’s lives

This novel chronicles the desperately bleak and ravaged life of a young widow caught in the
maelstrom of the Korean war. She has experienced every indignity imaginable, and now—in the
aftermath of the war—she must cope with emotional, psychological, and physical trauma that is
seemingly never-ending. As she struggles to find a place to call home, her memories of loss becoming
overwhelming.
Subject keyword: war
Original language: Korean
Source consulted for annotation:
Kyung-ja, Chun. Preface to the book.

Won-il Kim (Kim Wŏn-il). Evening Glow.

Translated by Agnita M. Tennant. Fremont, CA: Asian Humanities Press, 2003. 261 pages.
Genre/literary style/story type: mainstream fiction
Kapsu, now a resident of Seoul, was born in a small Korean town that was seized by communists in
1948. During the invasion, Kapsu’s father fervently embraced the utopian ideals of the conquerors,
perceiving them as liberators and joining in the euphoric violence of the time. Some 30 years after
these events, Kapsu returns to revisit his childhood home and try to make peace with a past charac-
terized by violence and anguish.
Subject keyword: social problems
Original language: Korean
Sources consulted for annotation:
Amazon.com (book description).
Back cover of the book.
Another translated book written by Won-il Kim: The Wind and the River

Jo Kyung-Ran (Kyung-Ran Jo). Tongue.

Translated by Chi-Young Kim. New York: Bloomsbury, 2009. 224 pages.
Genre/literary style/story type: mainstream fiction; women’s lives
Jeong Ji-won, a renowned chef and founder of a cooking school, must start anew when her longtime
lover leaves her for one of her students. Thus, she goes back to first principles, rediscovering the
pleasures of Italian cooking and the resiliency of her soul.
Subject keyword: identity
Original language: Korean
Source consulted for annotation:
McCulloch, Alison. The New York Times Book Review, 6 August 2009 (online).

Kyong-ni Pak (Park Kyong-ni). The Curse of Kim’s Daughters.

Translated by Choonwon Kang et al. Paramus, NJ: Homa & Sekey Books, 2004. 299 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: historical fiction; literary historical
Songsu Kim is orphaned when his mother commits suicide and his father abandons him. Taken in
by Pongjay, his uncle, he marries Punshi, the woman whom his uncle has chosen for him. For a
time, things go well: He inherits a pharmacy and becomes an investor in a fishing fleet. But Songsu
and Punshi’s first child, a son, dies, and the lives of their five daughters are cursed by accusations of
infanticide, madness, and domestic tragedy. This book is set against the background of important
historical events in pre-1950s Korea.
Subject keyword: family histories
Original language: Korean
 East Asia: China, Japan, and Korea 123

Sources consulted for annotation:

Amazon.com (book description).
Back cover of the book.
Scott, Whitney. Booklist 100 (July 2004): 1819.
Another translated book written by Kyong-ni Pak: Land

Wan-so Pak (Pak Wanso). My Very Last Possession and Other Stories.
Translated by Kyung-Ja Chun. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1999. 220 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: mainstream fiction; short stories
According to Janice P. Nimura, each of the stories in this collection “offer glimpses of a society at
once anchored in and imprisoned by strict Confucian mores and buffeted by war, political unrest
and massive emigration.” What does hypocrisy feel like? What would real healing involve? What
does it mean to be kind? The author has built a solid reputation as an eloquent and insightful analyst
of the hopes and excesses of postwar modernization in South Korea.
Subject keyword: modernization
Original language: Korean
Sources consulted for annotation:
Haboush, JaHyun Kim. The Journal of Asian Studies 59 (November 2000): 1055.
Knowlton, Edgar C. World Literature Today 74 (Winter 2000): 244.
Nimura, Janice P. The New York Times Book Review, 10 October 1999, p. 23.
Steinberg, Sybil S. Publishers Weekly 246 (21 June 1999): 56.
Some other translated books written by Wan-so Pak: A Sketch of the Fading Sun; The Naked
Tree; Three Days in That Autumn

Cho Se-hui (Se-hui Cho). The Dwarf.

Translated by Bruce and Ju-chan Fulton. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2006. 224 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: mainstream fiction; short stories
A bestseller in Korea, this collection of 12 interlinked stories centers on the difficult circumstances in
which a poverty-stricken family find themselves during the so-called Korean industrial boom of the
1970s. The author delivers an eloquent portrait of hubris and economic struggle where the rich get richer
and the poor get poorer. Writing in Words Without Borders, Hayun Jung called The Dwarf “an imagina-
tive cross between stark socio-political fiction and magical realism, used to deeply moving effect.”
Subject keywords: power; urban life
Original language: Korean
Source consulted for annotation:
University of Hawai‘i Press website (book description), http://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu.

Chang-sun Son (Jang-Soon Sohn). A Floating City on the Water.

Translated by Jin-Young Choi. Paramus, NJ: Homa & Sekey Books, 2005. 178 pages.
Genre/literary style/story type: mainstream fiction
The partition of Korea affected families in numerous tragic ways. While in Paris, Sujin—who was
born in South Korea—falls in love with a young man who turns out to be her brother, born earlier
in North Korea. On finding out their true identities, they part ways: Hansuk remains in France while
Sujin—who, unbeknownst to Hansuk, is pregnant—returns to South Korea, where she bears Hyung-
woo. Twenty years later, son and father meet.
Subject keyword: family histories
Original language: Korean
Source consulted for annotation:
Amazon.com (book description).
124 Contemporary World Fiction

Kwi-ja Yang (Yang Gui-ja). Contradictions.

Translated by Stephen Epstein and Kim Mi-Young. Ithaca, NY: East Asia Program, Cornell Univer-
sity, 2005. 172 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: mainstream fiction; women’s lives
Struggling to capture the essence of happiness, Jin-jin An must decide between two men who pro-
fess to love her but who could not be more different. At the same time, she must somehow manage
relationships with her less-than-pleasant mother; her brother, who thinks of himself as a gangster in
training; and her father, who, when he is not drinking, is slipping into madness.
Subject keyword: family histories
Original language: Korean
Sources consulted for annotation:
Amazon.com (book description).
Saran, Mishi. Far Eastern Economic Review 168 (December 2005): 72.
Some other translated books written by Kwi-ja Yang: A Distant and Beautiful Place; Strength
from Sorrow

Chung Yeun-hee. One Human Family and Other Stories.

Translated by Hyun-jae Yee Sallee. Buffalo, NY: White Pine Press, 2008. 191 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: mainstream fiction; short stories
This collection of four stories and a novella explores the continuing legacy of the Korean War. Ani-
mosities still linger, as evidenced by a group of senior citizens at a nursing home who suspect that a
new arrival collaborated with the enemy. In another story, a child mistakes discarded condoms for
balloons—an error that creates new wounds and opens up old ones.
Subject keywords: politics; war
Original language: Korean
Sources consulted for annotation:
Global Books in Print (online) (synopsis/book jacket).
White Pine Press (book description), http://www.whitepine.org.

Cho’ng-jun Yi (Yi Ch’ŏng-jun). The Prophet and Other Stories.

Translated by Julie Pickering. Ithaca, NY: East Asia Program, Cornell University, 1999. 189 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: mainstream fiction; short stories
This collection of five stories—all of which deal with the various ways that ordinary individuals sur-
vive during times of political and cultural crises—grows out of the traumatic history of modern
Korea: occupation by a foreign power; the Korean War and subsequent partition; dictatorship under
the military; rapid modernization and the concomitant erosion of a panoply of traditional practices;
and the painful transition to an accelerated capitalist economy that brings in its wake an ever-
increasing emphasis on materialism.
Subject keyword: social problems
Original language: Korean
Sources consulted for annotation:
Back cover of the book.
Crown, Bonnie R. World Literature Today 74 (Winter 2000): 244.
Some other translated books written by Chong-jun Yi: Your Paradise; The Wounded

Ho-ch’ol Yi (Lee Ho-Chul). Panmunjom and Other Stories.

Translated by Theodore H. Hughes; with two stories translated by Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton.
Norwalk, CT: EastBridge, 2005. 219 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: mainstream fiction; short stories
 East Asia: China, Japan, and Korea 125

According to the publisher’s website, the author is considered to be “one of South Korea’s most
prominent contemporary writers.” The book is written in “an astonishing variety of literary styles”
so as to offer an audience multiple perspectives from which to view “the devastating impact authori-
tarian rule, draconian anticommunism, and . . . national division have had on the everyday lives of
Koreans” over the last 50 years. Yi was himself imprisoned for his outspoken support of human
rights in the 1970s and 1980s.
Subject keywords: politics; power
Original language: Korean
Sources consulted for annotation:
Amazon.com (book description).
Hughes, Theodore. Introduction to the book.
Another translated book written by Ho-chol Yi: Southerners, Northerners

In-hwa Yi (Yi In-hwa). Everlasting Empire.

Translated by Yu Young-nan. White Plains, NY: EastBridge, 2002. 264 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: crime fiction; historical mysteries
This book, which has elements of historical fiction and mystery, has been compared to the work of
Umberto Eco. An ancient manuscript is found, but there is some dispute about its authenticity, espe-
cially since it purports to give insight into the political machinations, philosophies, and cultural con-
text of Korean life in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
Subject keywords: philosophy; power
Original language: Korean
Sources consulted for annotation:
Amazon.com (book description).
Back cover of the book.
Knowlton, Edgar C. World Literature Today 77 (April/June 2003): 99.

Mun-yol Yi (Yi Munyol). Our Twisted Hero.

Translated by Kevin O’Rourke. New York: Hyperion East, 2001. 122 pages.
Genre/literary style/story type: mainstream fiction
Inspired by events in Kwangju in 1980 when South Korean soldiers killed numerous democracy
advocates, this intensely psychological novel focuses on two boys in a small rural school. Twelve-
year-old Han Pyongt’ae is starting the fifth grade. Ceaselessly bullied by another student, he suc-
cumbs to his fate, passively biding his time until a new teacher arrives. An allegory about two
opposing political systems, the book has drawn comparisons with William Golding’s Lord of the
Flies.
Subject keywords: politics; power
Original language: Korean
Sources consulted for annotation:
Crown, Bonnie R. World Literature Today 76 (Winter 2002): 138.
Leber, Michele. Booklist 97 (1 January/15 January 2001): 920.
Obejas, Achy. The Village Voice 46 (10 July 2001): 71.
Quan, Shirley N. Library Journal 126 (January 2001): 158.
Steinberg, Sybil S. Publishers Weekly 247 (11 December 2000): 64.
Some other translated books written by Mun-yol Yi: Hail to the Emperor!; The Poet;
An Appointment with My Brother

Sung-u Yi (Lee Seung-U). The Reverse Side of Life.

Translated by Yoo-Jung Kong. London: Peter Owen, 2006. 208 pages.
126 Contemporary World Fiction

Genres/literary styles/story types: mainstream fiction; postmodernism

The life of a famous fictional South Korean writer, Bugil Bak, comes under scrutiny when a journal-
ist is asked to write about him. In many ways, Bak resembles Lee Seung-U, so part of the fun
involves the author attempting to sort through Bak’s life, especially his early years, which were
marked by the disappearance of his mother and father as well as his relationship with religion.
Critics raved about the author’s elegant and inventive metafictional sleights of hand.
Subject keyword: writers
Original language: Korean
Sources consulted for annotation:
Back cover of the book.
The Complete Review (book review), http://www.complete-review.com.
Peter Owen Publishers (book description), http://www.peterowen.com.
Another translated book written by Sung-u Yi: The Prviate Life of Plants

Tong-ha Yi (Dong-ha Lee). Toy City.

Translated by Chi-Young Kim. St. Paul, MN: Koryo Press, 2007. 214 pages.
Genre/literary style/story type: mainstream fiction
This novel is the melancholic coming-of-age story of an adolescent boy in the aftermath of the
Korean War. When circumstances force him to become the economic mainstay of his family, he
grudgingly accepts his role and soon discovers that the only person he can count on is himself. As
he encounters painful moment after painful moment, he nevertheless finds solace in the simple
pleasures of childhood.
Subject keyword: rural life
Original language: Korean
Source consulted for annotation:
Koryo Press website (book description), http://www.koryopress.com.
Another translated book written by Tong-ha Yi: Shrapnel and Other Stories

Kim Yong-Ha (Young-ha Kim). I Have The Right to Destroy Myself.

Translated by Chi-Young Kim. Orlando, FL: Harcourt, 2007. 119 pages.
Genres/literary styles/story types: crime fiction; suspense
In 1990s Korea, an unnamed narrator who is obsessed with the painting The Death of Marat
engages in an odd profession: helping others commit suicide. Se-Yeon sleeps with two brothers, dis-
appears, metamorphoses into various other women, and finally resurfaces as a client of the narrator.
Critics have invoked Stephen Crane’s novels Maggie: A Girl of the Streets and George’s Mother as
points of comparison to this novel.
Subject keyword: urban life
Original language: Korean
Source consulted for annotation:
Global Books in Print (online) (reviews from Booklist and Publishers Weekly).
 Assessment Tasks

• From the annotations that you have read, fill out the contemporary themes matrix
by filtering the literary works by their subject or themes. Supply the title of the
texts to complete the grid. (You may use additional paper.)

Countries Politics Power Culture Identity Social Family Social

Conflict Roles Histories Problems

China

Japan

Korea

4
 Assessment Tasks

• From the matrix that you have created, write an expository essay that
reports one common theme that run through literary fictions of China,
Japan and Korea. Put some details. Cite information from the chapter that
you have read. You may use the template from this cite:
https://bid4papers.com/blog/expository-essay/

• Be guided by the rubric below.