Hiromi Kawakami

Banana Yoshimoto

Shuichi Yoshida

Hitomi Kanehara

Hideo Furukawa

Kaori Ekuni

Mitsuyo Kakuta

Toshiyuki Horie

Nao-Cola Yamazaki

Osamu Hashimoto

A shape-shifter arrives at Tokyo harbour in human form, set to embark on an unstoppable rampage through the city’s train network… A young woman is accompanied home one night by a reclusive student, and finds herself lured into a flat full of eerie Egyptian artefacts… A man suspects his young wife’s obsession with picnicking every weekend in the city’s parks hides a darker motive… At first, Tokyo appears in these stories as it does to many outsiders: a city of bewildering scale, awe-inspiring modernity, peculiar rules, unknowable secrets and, to some extent, danger. Characters observe their fellow citizens from afar, hesitant to stray from their daily routines to engage with them. But Tokyo being the city it is, random encounters inevitably take place – a naïve book collector, mistaken for a French speaker, is drawn into a world he never knew existed; a woman seeking psychiatric help finds herself in a taxi with an older man wanting to share his own peculiar revelations; a depressed divorcee accepts an unexpected lunch invitation to try Thai food for the very first time… The result in each story is a small but crucial change in perspective, a sampling of the unexpected yet simple pleasure of other people’s company. As one character puts it, ‘The world is full of delicious things, you know.’

A City in Short Fiction

The Book of Tokyo

A startling novella from the heir to Haruki Murakami and Gabriel García Márquez Trapped in Tokyo, left behind by a series of girlfriends, the narrator of Slow Boat sizes up his situation. His missteps, his violent rebellions, his tiny victories. But he is not a passive loser, content to accept all that fate hands him. He attempts one last escape to the edges of the city, holding the only safety net he has known - his dreams. Filled with lyrical longing and humour, Slow Boat captures perfectly the urge to get away and the necessity of finding yourself in a world which might never even be looking for you.

Slow Boat

As we passed from the city center into the Fukushima suburbs I surveyed the landscape for surgical face masks. I wanted to see how much people were wearing such masks, and calculate in what ratios. I was trying to determine, consciously and unconsciously, what people do in response. So, among people walking along the roadway, and people on motorbikes, I saw no one with masks. Even among the official crossing guards outfitted with yellow flags and banners, none. All showed bright and calm. What was I hoping for exactly? The guilty conscience again. But then it was time for school to start. We began to see groups of kids on their way to school. They were wearing masks. Winner of UNESCO's Noma Literary Prize, Horses, Horses, in the End the Light Remains Pure is the first major literary response to the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown that devastated northeast Japan in 2011. Following these catastrophic events, the character Hideo Furukawa travels back to his childhood home near Fukushima to assess the damage and reconnect with a place that is now doubly alien. His journey conjures the storied history of the region, particularly the Soma nomaoi military exercises, in which wild horses were captured and offered to a Shinto shrine. Standing in the crisp morning light, these horses also tell their stories, heightening the sense of liberation, chaos, and loss that accompanies Furukawa's difficult return.

A Tale That Begins With Fukushima

Horses, Horses, in the End the Light Remains Pure

Belka, why don't you bark?

Una lenta nave per la Cina. Murakami RMX

Identità sessuale, migrazioni, rapporto tra tecnologia e natura, i grandi temi contemporanei in una narrazione in cui realtà e fantasia non vogliono più distinguersi, perché nel loro mescolarsi nasce uno strumento di massima libertà. In una Tokyo tropicale e surriscaldata giungono un ragazzo e una ragazza che hanno in comune un passato straordinario, sono riusciti a sopravvivere su un’isola deserta. Riportati alla civiltà, le loro vite prenderanno strade diverse, ma finiranno per convergere di nuovo nel caos elettrizzante e tossico della capitale giapponese. Assieme vorranno sognare un cammino comune e imporre la loro diversità a un mondo condannato a un doloroso e inarrestabile declino. Un romanzo di formazione del XXI secolo.

Tokyo Soundtrack

Belka, Why Don’t You Bark? begins in 1943, when Japanese troops retreat from the Aleutian island of Kiska, leaving four military dogs behind. One of them dies in isolation, and the others are taken under the protection of U.S. troops. Meanwhile, in the USSR, a KGB military dog handler kidnaps the daughter of a Japanese yakuza. Named after the Russian astronaut dog Strelka, the girl develops a psychic connection with canines. A multi-generational epic as seen through the eyes of man’s best friend, the dogs who are used as mere tools for the benefit of humankind gradually discover their true selves, and learn something about us. -- VIZ Media

Belka, Why Don't You Bark?

Tokio soundtrack

Hideo Furukawa

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