Hiromi Kawakami's Books

Record of a Night Too Brief

By: Hiromi Kawakami

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“Evocative... Astonishing, strange, and wonderful” – Kirkus Reviews (starred review) A trio of surreal, dazzlingly imaginative short stories set in contemporary Japan that explore desire and loss, talking animals, and odd disappearances Sensual, yearning, and filled with the tricks of memory and grief, from the celebrated author of Strange Weather in Tokyo In these 3 haunting and lyrical stories, young women experience loss, loneliness, and extraordinary romance. The nightingale sang again. The plates on the table gleamed, and the food, in all its ceaseless variety, breathed, glossy and bright. The night had only just begun. A woman travels through an unending night with a porcelain girlfriend, monsters of the mist and a monkey who shows no mercy. A sister mourns her brother, who is visible only to her, while her family welcome his would-be wife into their home. One morning, a woman treads on a snake in the park. She comes home that evening and realises the snake has moved into her house and is saying she is her mother… Winner of the Akutagawa Prize, Japan’s most prestigious literary award, the 3 stories in this collection: Record of a Night Too Brief Missing A Snake Stepped On reveal a highly surreal, meticulously crafted exploration of the many facets of desire, loss and fantasy. Part of Pushkin’s Japanese Novella series: stylishly designed editions of the best of contemporary Japanese fiction, featuring celebrated, prize-winning authors including Mieko Kawakami, Hideo Furukawa, Kaori Fujino and Natsuko Imamura.

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Page Count

161

Publisher

Pushkin Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

180533140X

ISBN 13

9781805331407

The Briefcase

By: Hiromi Kawakami

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The Briefcase

By: Hiromi Kawakami

Tsukiko, thirty–eight, works in an office and lives alone. One night, she happens to meet one of her former high school teachers, "Sensei" in a local bar. Tsukiko had only ever called him "Sensei" ("Teacher"). He is thirty years her senior, retired, and presumably a widower. Their relationship–traced by Kawakami's gentle hints at the changing seasons–develops from a perfunctory acknowledgment of each other as they eat and drink alone at the bar, to an enjoyable sense of companionship, and finally into a deeply sentimental love affair. As Tsukiko and Sensei grow to know and love one another, time's passing comes across through the seasons and the food and beverages they consume together. From warm sake to chilled beer, from the buds on the trees to the blooming of the cherry blossoms, the reader is enveloped by a keen sense of pathos and both characters' keen loneliness.

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Page Count

145

Publisher

Catapult

Published Date

ISBN 10

1619020432

ISBN 13

9781619020436

Under the Eye of the Big Bird

A Novel

By: Hiromi Kawakami

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Under the Eye of the Big Bird

A Novel

By: Hiromi Kawakami

From one of Japan's most brilliant and sensitive contemporary novelists, this speculative fiction masterpiece envisions an Earth where humans are nearing extinction, and rewrites our understanding of reproduction, ecology, evolution, artificial intelligence, communal life, creation, love, and the future of humanity In the distant future, humans are on the verge of extinction and have settled in small tribes across the planet under the observation and care of "Mothers." Some children are made in factories, from cells of rabbits and dolphins; some live by getting nutrients from water and light, like plants. The survival of the race depends on the interbreeding of these and other alien beings--but it is far from certain that connection, love, reproduction, and evolution will persist among the inhabitants of this faltering new world. Unfolding over fourteen interconnected episodes spanning geological eons, at once technical and pastoral, mournful and utopic, Under the Eye of the Big Bird presents an astonishing vision of the end of our species as we know it.

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Page Count

204

Publisher

Catapult

Published Date

ISBN 10

1593766203

ISBN 13

9781593766207

People from My Neighborhood

Stories

By: Hiromi Kawakami

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People from My Neighborhood

Stories

By: Hiromi Kawakami

Nominated for the 2021 Shirley Jackson Award From the author of the internationally bestselling Strange Weather in Tokyo, a collection of interlinking stories that masterfully blend the mundane and the mythical—"fairy tales in the best Brothers Grimm tradition: naïf, magical, and frequently veering into the macabre" (Financial Times). A bossy child who lives under a white cloth near a tree; a schoolgirl who keeps doll's brains in a desk drawer; an old man with two shadows, one docile and one rebellious; a diplomat no one has ever seen who goes fishing at an artificial lake no one has ever heard of. These are some of the inhabitants of People from My Neighborhood. In their lives, details of the local and everyday—the lunch menu at a tiny drinking place called the Love, the color and shape of the roof of the tax office—slip into accounts of duels, prophetic dreams, revolutions, and visitations from ghosts and gods. In twenty-six "palm of the hand" stories—fictions small enough to fit in the palm of one's hand and brief enough to allow for dipping in and out—Hiromi Kawakami creates a universe ruled by mystery and transformation.

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Page Count

177

Publisher

Catapult

Published Date

ISBN 10

1593767110

ISBN 13

9781593767112

The Ten Loves of Nishino

By: Hiromi Kawakami

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The Ten Loves of Nishino

By: Hiromi Kawakami

The story of an enigmatic man through the voices of ten remarkable women who have loved him at one point in their lives. Each woman has succumbed, even if only for an hour, to that seductive, imprudent, and furtively feline man who drifted so naturally into their lives. Still clinging to the vivid memory of his warm breath and his indecipherable sentences, ten women tell their stories as they attempt to recreate the image of the unfathomable Nishino. Like a modern Decameron, this humorous, sensual, and touching novel by one of Japan’s best-selling and most beloved writers is a powerful and embracing portrait of the human comedy in ten voices. Driven by desires that are at once unique and common, the women in this book are modern, familiar to us, and still mysterious. A little like Nishino himself . . . Winner 2020 Pen Translation Prize Praise for The Ten Loves of Nishino “If you like Haruki Murakami and Yoko Ogawa, it’s a safe bet that you’ll love The Ten Loves of Nishino.” —DozoDomo (France) “Agile, inventive fiction.” —Booklist “An intriguing portrayal of romantic attachment.” —The New Yorker “The women in this collection are vibrant, lusty, and clearly the agents of their own love lives . . . . Kawakami's novel treats its feminist themes with a light hand but still slyly lands its points.” —Kirkus Reviews

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Page Count

143

Publisher

Europa Editions

Published Date

ISBN 10

1609455320

ISBN 13

9781609455323

The Ten Loves of Mr Nishino

By: Hiromi Kawakami

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The Ten Loves of Mr Nishino

By: Hiromi Kawakami

Over the course of his life, Mr Nishino falls hopelessly in love again and again. One woman is a colleague, another a chance encounter; one is the girlfriend of a classmate, another the best friend of Nishino's latest conquest. Some are entranced by Nishino, others care more for their freedom, their children (or their cats). As we come to learn of the torments, desires and delights of each woman, a portrait emerges of a complicated man whose great capacity for love may well be the cause of his downfall.

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Page Count

208

Published Date

ISBN 10

1846277019

ISBN 13

9781846277016

Strange Weather in Tokyo

A Novel

By: Hiromi Kawakami

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Strange Weather in Tokyo

A Novel

By: Hiromi Kawakami

Shortlisted for the 2013 Man Asian Literary Prize, Strange Weather in Tokyo is a story of loneliness and love that defies age. Tsukiko, thirty–eight, works in an office and lives alone. One night, she happens to meet one of her former high school teachers, "Sensei," in a local bar. Tsukiko had only ever called him "Sensei" ("Teacher"). He is thirty years her senior, retired, and presumably a widower. Their relationship develops from a perfunctory acknowledgment of each other as they eat and drink alone at the bar, to a hesitant intimacy which tilts awkwardly and poignantly into love. As Tsukiko and Sensei grow to know and love one another, time's passing is marked by Kawakami's gentle hints at the changing seasons: from warm sake to chilled beer, from the buds on the trees to the blooming of the cherry blossoms. Strange Weather in Tokyo is a moving, funny, and immersive tale of modern Japan and old–fashioned romance.

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Page Count

205

Publisher

Catapult

Published Date

ISBN 10

1640090177

ISBN 13

9781640090170

Parade

A Folktale

By: Hiromi Kawakami

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Parade

A Folktale

By: Hiromi Kawakami

A parable about memory, mythic characters, and confessional regrets . . . An ethereal, resonating literary gift" (Booklist, starred review) from the internationally bestselling author of Strange Weather in Tokyo. "On a summer afternoon, Tsukiko and her former high school teacher have prepared and eaten somen noodles together. “Tell me a story from long ago,” Sensei says. “I wasn’t alive long ago,” Tsukiko says, “but should I tell you a story from when I was little?” “Please do,” Sensei replies, and so Tsukiko tells him that, when she was a child, she awakened one day to find something with a pale red face and something with a dark red face in her room, arguing with each other. They had human bodies, long noses, and wings. They were tengu, creatures that appear in Japanese folktales. The tengu attach themselves to Tsukiko and begin to follow her everywhere. Where did they come from and why are they here? And what other invisible and unacknowledged forces are acting upon Tsukiko’s seemingly peaceful world?

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Catapult

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ISBN 10

1593765819

ISBN 13

9781593765811

Manazuru

By: Hiromi Kawakami

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Manazuru

By: Hiromi Kawakami

Startlingly restless and immaculately compact, Manazuru paints the portrait of a woman on the brink of her own memories and future. Twelve years have passed since Kei’s husband, Rei, disappeared and she was left alone with her three–year–old daughter. Her new relationship with a married man—the antithesis of Rei—has brought her life to a numbing stasis, and her relationships with her mother and daughter have spilled into routine, day after day. Kei begins making repeated trips to the seaside town of Manazuru, a place that jogs her memory to a moment in time she can never quite locate. Her time there by the water encompasses years of unsteady footing and a developing urgency to find something. Through a poetic style embracing the surreal and grotesque, a quiet tenderness emerges from these dark moments. Manazuru is a meditation on memory—a profound, precisely delineated exploration of the relationships between lovers and family members.

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Page Count

147

Publisher

Catapult

Published Date

ISBN 10

1582438560

ISBN 13

9781582438566

Under the Eye of the Big Bird

A Novel

By: Hiromi Kawakami

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Under the Eye of the Big Bird

A Novel

By: Hiromi Kawakami

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Page Count

204

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Catapult

Published Date

ISBN 10

1593766203

ISBN 13

9781593766207

Strange Weather in Tokyo

A Novel

By: Hiromi Kawakami

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Strange Weather in Tokyo

A Novel

By: Hiromi Kawakami

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205

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Catapult

Published Date

ISBN 10

1640090177

ISBN 13

9781640090170

Record of a Night Too Brief

By: Hiromi Kawakami

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Record of a Night Too Brief

By: Hiromi Kawakami

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161

Publisher

Pushkin Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

180533140X

ISBN 13

9781805331407

People from My Neighborhood

Stories

By: Hiromi Kawakami

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People from My Neighborhood

Stories

By: Hiromi Kawakami

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Page Count

177

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Catapult

Published Date

ISBN 10

1593767110

ISBN 13

9781593767112

The Briefcase

By: Hiromi Kawakami

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The Briefcase

By: Hiromi Kawakami

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Page Count

145

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Catapult

Published Date

ISBN 10

1619020432

ISBN 13

9781619020436

Science for the Empire

Scientific Nationalism in Modern Japan

By: Hiromi Mizuno

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Science for the Empire

Scientific Nationalism in Modern Japan

By: Hiromi Mizuno

This fascinating study examines the discourse of science in Japan from the 1920s to the 1940s in relation to nationalism and imperialism. How did Japan, with Shinto creation mythology at the absolute core of its national identity, come to promote the advancement of science and technology? Using what logic did wartime Japanese embrace both the rationality that denied and the nationalism that promoted this mythology? Focusing on three groups of science promoters—technocrats, Marxists, and popular science proponents—this work demonstrates how each group made sense of apparent contradictions by articulating its politics through different definitions of science and visions of a scientific Japan. The contested, complex political endeavor of talking about and promoting science produced what the author calls "scientific nationalism," a powerful current of nationalism that has been overlooked by scholars of Japan, nationalism, and modernity.

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Page Count

289

Publisher

Stanford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0804769842

ISBN 13

9780804769846

The Third Love

By: Hiromi Kawakami

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The Third Love

By: Hiromi Kawakami

Having married her childhood sweetheart, Riko now finds herself trapped in a relationship that has been soured by infidelity. One day, by chance, she runs into her old friend Mr Takaoka, who offers friendship, love, and an unusual escape: he teaches her the trick of living inside her dreams. And so, each night, she sinks into another life: first as a high-ranking courtesan in the 17th century, and then as a serving lady to a princess in the late Middle Ages. As she experiences desire and heartbreak in the past, so Riko comes to reconsider her life as a 21st century woman, as a wife, as a mother, and as a lover, and to ask herself whether, after loving her husband and loving Mr Takaoka, she is now ready for her third great love.

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Page Count

270

Publisher

Granta Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

1783788895

ISBN 13

9781783788897

Age of Shōjo

The Emergence, Evolution, and Power of Japanese Girls' Magazine Fiction

By: Hiromi Tsuchiya Dollase

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Age of Shōjo

The Emergence, Evolution, and Power of Japanese Girls' Magazine Fiction

By: Hiromi Tsuchiya Dollase

Hiromi Tsuchiya Dollase examines the role that magazines have played in the creation and development of the concept of shōjo, the modern cultural identity of adolescent Japanese girls. Cloaking their ideas in the pages of girls' magazines, writers could effectively express their desires for freedom from and resistance against oppressive cultural conventions, and their shōjo characters' "immature" qualities and social marginality gave them the power to express their thoughts without worrying about the reaction of authorities. Dollase details the transformation of Japanese girls' fiction from the 1900s to the 1980s by discussing the adaptation of Western stories, including Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, in the Meiji period; the emergence of young female writers in the 1910s and the flourishing girls' fiction era of the 1920s and 1930s; the changes wrought by state interference during the war; and the new era of empowered postwar fiction. The book highlights seminal author Yoshiya Nobuko's dreamy fantasies and Kitagawa Chiyo's social realism, Morita Tama's autobiographical feminism, the contributions of Nobel Prize–winning author Kawabata Yasunari, and the humorous modern fiction of Himuro Saeko and Tanabe Seiko. Using girls' perspectives, these authors addressed social topics such as education, same-sex love, feminism, and socialism. The age of shōjo, which began at the turn of the twentieth century, continues to nurture new generations of writers and entice audiences beyond age, gender, and nationality.

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Page Count

226

Publisher

State University of New York Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1438473923

ISBN 13

9781438473925

Heal the Eternal

Spiritual Adventures from Despair to Triumph

By: Hiromi Asa

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Heal the Eternal

Spiritual Adventures from Despair to Triumph

By: Hiromi Asa

Kazu, an average office worker in Tokyo, is befriended by a psychic, begins a spiritual quest and becomes a gifted healer.

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Page Count

259

Publisher

iUniverse

Published Date

ISBN 10

1475970250

ISBN 13

9781475970258

The Nakano Thrift Shop

A Novel

By: Hiromi Kawakami

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The Nakano Thrift Shop

A Novel

By: Hiromi Kawakami

This “gentle, humorous novel” follows a young Japanese woman as she yearns for the love of a reluctant coworker (The Wall Street Journal). The objects for sale at the Nakano Thrift Shop appear as commonplace as the staff and customers who handle them. But like those staff and customers, they hold many secrets. If examined carefully, they show the signs of innumerable extravagances, of immeasurable pleasure and pain, and of the deep mysteries of the human heart. Hitomi, the inexperienced young woman who works the register, has fallen for her coworker, the oddly reserved Takeo. Unsure of how to attract his attention, she seeks advice from her employer’s sister, Masayo, whose sentimental entanglements make her a somewhat unconventional guide. But thanks in part to Masayo, Hitomi will come to realize that love, desire, and intimacy require acceptance not only of idiosyncrasies but also of the delicate waltz between open and hidden secrets, in this novel from the author of Strange Weather in Tokyo that “captures an untranslatable Japanese mood” (The New York Times). “Uses a series of vignettes to chronicle a girl’s time working at Mr. Nakano’s secondhand store in Tokyo . . . Pleasant, leisurely prose.” —Publishers Weekly “Hiromi Kawakami’s charming novel illuminates moments of kindness, love and friendship that pop up like the unexpected treasures amid the shop’s dusty collection of pretty mismatched bowls and plates, castoff eyeglasses, task lamps and old electric fans.” —Minneapolis Star-Tribune

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Page Count

187

Publisher

Europa Editions

Published Date

ISBN 10

1609454006

ISBN 13

9781609454005

Manazuru

A Novel

By: Hiromi Kawakami

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Manazuru

A Novel

By: Hiromi Kawakami

Kei, who was left alone to raise her daughter after her husband disappeared twelve years ago, finds herself drawn to the seaside town of Manazuru, a place where she tries to unlock memories from her past.

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Page Count

219

Publisher

Counterpoint Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1582436274

ISBN 13

9781582436272

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