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7 UMJETNOST. ARHITEKTURA. FOTOGRAFIJA. GLAZBA. SPORT 7.0 UMJETNOST. OPĆENITO. 7.03 HERRI zen HERRIGEL, Gustie L. 7.03 Zen in the art of flower arrangement [an introduction to the spirit of the Japanese art of flower arrangement] / Gustie L. Herrigel ; with a foreword by Daisetz T. Suzuki ; translated from the German by R.F.C. Hull. - reprinted 2006. London ; New York : Arkana, 1987. - xiv, 124 p. : ill. ; 20 cm. - Translation of: Der Blumenweg. ISBN 1850630763 In this companion volume to Eugen Herrigel's classic Zen in the Art of Archery, Gustie Herrigel describes the underlying Zen symbolism in the Japanese art of flower arranging, ikebana. During the 1920's while living in Japan, Gustie Herrigel studied ikebana under one of Japan's greatest Masters and by the time she left Japan in 1930 she herself had become a Master. The act of training in ikebana is a process of achieving spiritual enlightenment; the craft of arranging flowers is a form of meditation. Gustie Herrigel's account of her education in ikebana and her gradual understanding of its underlying symbolism is a story of great charm. She teaches the reader the disciplined but artfully natural style of flower arrangement, while providing a perceptive introduction to Zen. In this beautifully written book we are introduced to the traditions of an older Japanese way of life, which has since been swept away by Western influence. Illustrated with sketches from Master Bokuyo Takeda

8 JEZICI. ZNANOST O JEZIKU. KNJIŽEVNOST 821 KNJIŽEVNOST NA POJEDINIM JEZICIMA 821.521 BANAN YOSHIMOTO, Banana 821.521 Gušterica / Yoshimoto Banana / prijevod s japanskog na ruski: Elena Baibikov. - [s.l.] : Amfora, 2004. - 175. str. ; 18 cm. Originalni naslov: Tokage ISBN 5-94278-639-9

821.521 BIRTH bir BIRTHDAY stories, selected 821.521 Birthday stories [selected and introduced by Haruki Murakami. -] London : Harvill, 2004. - 183 p. ; 20 cm

ISBN 1843431599 Our birthday is a day of the year we're sure to remember, a marker in time from which it is easy to asses exactly the course our lives have taken over the last twelve months. And so birthdays are a time for taking stock, for making resolutions for change. In this collection Murakami has assembled birthday scenes of family ties wished for, made and broken; of chance meetings and much lamented losses and scenes featuring a spectrum of emotions from joy to despair- of imperfect pasts and uncertain futures. As Murakami's own style is applauded for brilliantly conveying 'the absolute oddness of ordinary life' (RUPERT THOMPSON, Esquire) this collection portrays this same minutiae as Murakami would observe it- the mundane events that had an unexpected twist. Previously published in Japan in Murakami's translation the collection appears here with the addition of an introduction written by Murakami especially for this English language edition.

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821.521 BURUM the BURUMA, Ian 821.521 The missionary and the libertine [love and war in East and West] / Ian Buruma. - 1st U.S. ed. - New York, Random House, c 2000. - xxv, 319 p. ; 25 cm. - Originally published: London ; Boson : Faber, 1996.. - ISBN 037550222X This collection of essays, drawn mainly from The New York Review of Books, will appeal to readers interested in the Far East, especially Japan. Ian Buruma writes of Europe's very particular fascination with Asia, and makes clear that this is what attracted him, too: Neither puritanism nor sensuality was ever unique to East or West, yet, on the whole, it is for the latter that Westerners have looked East. There has been a sensual, even erotic, element in encounters--imaginary or real--between East and West since the ancient Greeks. The European idea of the Orient as female, voluptuous, decadent, amoral--in short, as dangerously seductive--long predates the European empires in India and Southeast Asia. Yet an unexpected reversal has upset this mode of thought. "From the official point of view of China, Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, and Japan," writes Buruma, "Europe and the United States are now models not of masculine vim but, on the contrary, of decadence, libertinism, and sloth." The best essay in The Missionary and the Libertine builds off this observation by examining Lee Kuan Yew's repressive Singapore and the "Asian values" debate. Startling anecdotes spring from the page (in this selection as well as the others), such as the employment ad Buruma shares from a Singapore daily: "Filipino. Hardworking. No day off." Buruma is more than just an observer; he's also an analyst. The very concept of "Asian values" rings untrue, he believes, because the phrase "only really makes sense in English. In Chinese, Malay, or Hindi, it would sound odd. Chinese think of themselves as Chinese, and Indians as Indians (or Tamils, or Punjabs). Asia, as a cultural concept, is an official invention to bridge vastly different ethnic populations living in former British colonies." Buruma also writes about Pakistan's Benazir Bhutto, the Philippines' Cory Aquino, V.S. Naipaul, the Seoul Olympics, the debate over the bomb in Japan, and so on. The book is a grab bag of literature and culture, and fans of Buruma will be delighted to have it all packed together in a single volume.

821.521 DAVIE jap JAPANESE the 821.521 The Japanese mind [understanding contemporary Japanese culture] / edited by Roger J. Davies & Osamu Ikeno. - Boston : Tuttle Pub., 2002. - vii, 270 p. : 21 cm

ISBN 0804832951 (PB)

821.521 DEBECK DE Becker, J. E. 821.521 The nightless city [geisha and courtesan life in old Tokyo] / J. E. De Becker. - Dover ed. - Mineola, N.Y. : Dover Publications, 2007. - xiv, 386 p. : ill. ; 22 cm Originally published: The nightless city, or, The history of the Yoshiwara Yukwaku. Rev. 5th ed. Yokohama : Max Nossler ; London : Probsthain, 1910. ISBN 0486455637

Published in 1899 The Nightless City is a priceless historical document of a study of the Yoshiwara Yukwaku, Tokoyo's infamous red-light district. 386 pages about traditions, folklore, costumes, erotic practices, price lists, menus, legal documents, laws, hair styles and much, much, more. Looked at as a necessary evil, the district lasted till 1957, when its end was mourned across the world. I am not joking. I mourn its loss as I type. A dumping ground for surplus daughters, a place of slavery and refinement, of sin and beauty, where pleasure was but a business and an art. Any anybody interested in Japanese history, or just the history of sin, should pick up this book.

821.521 HINO, isl HINO, Keizo 821.521 Isle of dreams / by Keizo Hino ; translated by Charles De Wolf. - 1st ed. - Champaign : Dalkey Archive Press, 2010. - 156 p. ; 21 cm. - (Dalkey Archive Press's Japanese Literature series)

ISBN 9781564786036 Though it has a lovely name, the real "Island of Dreams" is actually a hunk of reclaimed land in Tokyo Bay where the city dumps its garbage . . . and yet, Shozo Saka, a middle-aged widower, does indeed find the place beautiful: gravitating more and more, since the death of his wife, toward the Island's massive piles of trash. One day, however, his refuge is invaded by Yoko, a mysterious woman in black, who visits the Island on her motorcycle for no other reason than to treat it as her own private obstacle course. Soon Yoko has lured Saka away from his garbage-paradise, leading him back into a Tokyo far less benign than the things it's thrown away. Acclaimed on its first publication, Island of Dreams is a sinister satire on urban decay.

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821.521 ILLU ILLUSTRATED Conversation Book 821.521 Illustrated Conversation Book : Japan in English and Japanese / Comics Kiriko Kubo Illustrations Nachie Enomoto. - [s.l.] : JTN Publishing : 2007. - 143 str. : ilustr. ; 22 cm.

ISBN 978-4-533-06784-6 This is a great phrasebook for English speaking people travelling to Japan, it is well laid out to show how to put your questions & meaning accross. Similar to the 'Point and Speak' series this is along the same line, with cartoon colour illustrations by famous illustrators Kiriko Kubo and Nachie Enomoto. The book contains various topics, with each word in English, Katakana, Hiragana, Kanji and the phonetic pronunciation. Contents include Getting Started, Getting Out, Getting A Bite, Getting Things, Getting Some Fun, Getting Understood and Getting Proficient. Each chapter begins with a cartoon scenario to do with the topic and continues into mini chapters. This book is also very useful as it has pages on specific situations you may find yourself in, such as visiting a hot spring, sumo match, restaurant or inn with the language you may need or encounter. The cover sleeve removes and has a Hiragana chart on the reverse. There is also a very useful vocabulary list and basic grammar section in the back of the book so you can understand a little about how sentences are formed and try some out for yourself. As well as the picture element this book also contains useful insights into how Japan works, with tips and info on social elements, traditions and things you may see or hear. A well rounded, popular book which is more of a fact and phrasebook than the simpler Point & Speak layout. We recommend this for people who want a deeper knowledge of Japan and have some confidence in attempting Japanese. 143 pages.

821.521 ISHIG nik ISHIGURO, Kazuo 821.521 Nikad me ne ostavljaj / Kazuo Ishiguro ; [prevela s engleskoga Vesna Valenčić]. - Rijeka : Leo-commerce, 2005. - 334 str. ; 22 cm. - (Biblioteka Bestseleri) Prijevod djela: Never let me go. ISBN 953-218-121-0 Kazuo Ishiguro je veoma cijenjeni britanski pisac, dobitnik značajnih nagrada za književnost. U romanu ˝Nikad me ne ostavljaj˝ stvorio je još jednu divljenja vrijednu priču o ljubavi, gubitku i skrivenim istinama.

821.521 IWAO the IWAO, Sumiko, 1935- 821.521 The Japanese woman [traditional image and changing reality] / Sumiko Iwao. - Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1994. - xii, 304 p. ; 24 cm. -

ISBN 0674471962

Japanese women, according to Iwao, a professor of psychology in Tokyo, "often feel that living according to principle forces human beings into unnatural behavior" and is "confining as far as the attainment of happiness for the individual is concerned." She compares this attitude favorably with that of American women's "persistent" demands for an ideal of equality. Iwao argues that "contrary to the image of subjugation outsiders seem to associate with Japanese women," they have more freedom than Japanese men, who are mere worker bees; they have more time for friends, family and personal interests, and control the purse strings. While there is widespread dissatisfaction with exhausted and uncompanionable husbands, one in six women compensates, guiltlessly, with a lover. Sixty-five percent of Japanese women with school-age children have jobs, and although they "believe in equal pay for equal work, equal opportunity and so on," they are generally not expected to contribute to household expenses. The study is densely packed with invaluable data about generational changes in Japanese women's lives, and is intriguing for its insights into the differences between Japanese and American value systems, but it is sometimes unduly provocative in tone and ambiguous in its assessments of Japanese women's recent progress.

821.521 IWASA gei IWASAKI, Mineko 821.521 GEISHA, A Life / Mineko Iwasaki with Rande BRown. - New York London Toronto Sydney : Washington Square Press, 2002. - 297 str : fotografije ; 21 cm

ISBN 0-7434-4429-9

821.521 KIRIN gro KIRINO, Natsuo, 1951 - 821.521 Grotesque / Natsuo Kirino ; translated by Rebecca Copeland. - 1st Vintage International ed. - New York, NY : Vintage International/Vintage Books, 2008. - 530 p. ; 21 cm. - "Originally published ... in Japan as Gurotesuku by Bungei Shunju in 2003"--T.p. verso. - ISBN 9781400096596 Natsuo Kirino's second novel to be translated into English confirms her as one of the elite novelists

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who are moving contemporary Japanese fiction into the American consciousness. Banana Yoshimoto and Haruki Murakami have led the charge, Yoshimoto with her odd, artless portraits of young people, and Murakami surveying the surreal with devastating, deadpan insight. In Grotesque, Kirino continues to stake out the territory she claimed in Out: the edges of the human psyche that darken toward horror. Kirino's subjects are women and murder. Two women in their late 30s have been killed in similar fashion within a year of each other: Yuriko, a prostitute, and Kazue, a successful professional who was turning tricks on the side. They are linked by a nameless woman, older sister of the former and classmate of the latter, who lays out their histories and her own in a chillingly dispassionate, curiously defensive narrative.

Yuriko and her sister are daughters of a Japanese mother and a Swiss father. In Yuriko's case this has resulted in an "almost godlike" beauty. At the exclusive girls' school they attend, Yuriko rises effortlessly on looks alone, while awkward Kazue sweats for high marks and remains pathetically unaware of her permanent unpopularity. The narrator, neither beautiful nor brilliant, watches her sister and her friend and hones her "uncompromising ability to feel spite."

Born into a world of rigid hierarchies and enrolled in a school that makes these unspoken boundaries painfully plain, the girls come of age in an environment that Darwin would have recognized immediately. Images of evolution, adaptation and mutation are everywhere. The narrator classifies the various student species with scientific precision and dreams of a "very simple world" where "everything engages in a survival of the fittest and all living creatures exist just to procreate."

But emotion does not obey Darwinian rules. It mutates, and monsters are born, people "with something twisted inside, something that grows and grows until it looms all out of proportion." In a society that values conformity, Yuriko's beauty is too perfect, Kazue's cravings for success too obvious. As these young women mature, their excesses exile them from Japanese society -- and they find themselves suddenly free. This is the terrible paradox at the center of Kirino's work: In Japan, to be a monster, a grotesque, can be a kind of liberation. watches the trial of their accused murderer unfold, the narrator's malice turns into a kind of envy of the dead women, who in their sexual freedom flouted the society that rejected them. Grotesque is a powerful indictment of that society, its narrator's spirit "painted with hatred, dyed with bitterness." Kirino's women speak from beneath the lacquered surfaces of traditional Japan, in voices that need to be heard.

821.521 KIRIN out KIRINO, Natsuo, 1951- 821.521 Out / Natsuo Kirino ; translated from the Japanese by Stephen Snyder. - London : Vintage, 2004. - 520 p. ; 20 cm First published in Japan 1997 by Kodansha Ltd ISBN 0099472287

821.521 KUNZR tra KUNZRU, Hari, 1969 - 821.521 Transmission / Hari Kunzru. - London : Hamish Hamilton, 2004. - 280 p. ; 24 cm

ISBN 0-241-14268-7 With this taut and entertaining novel, London native Kunzru paints a satirized but unsettlingly familiar tableau, in which his alienated characters communicate via e-mail jokes and emote through pop culture, all the while dreaming of frothy lattes and designer labels. Arjun Mehta is an Indian computer programmer and Bollywood buff who comes to the U.S. with big dreams, but finds neither the dashing romance nor the heroic ending of his favorite movies—just a series of crushing disappointments. When he is told he will lose his job at the global security software company and thus may have to return to India, Arjun develops and secretly releases a nasty computer virus, hoping that he can impress his boss into hiring him back when he "finds" the cure. Arjun's desperate measures are, of course, far reaching, eventually affecting the lives of Guy Swift, an English new money entrepreneur; his girlfriend, Gabriella; and the young Indian movie star Leela Zahir. Kunzru weaves their narratives adroitly, finding humor and pathos in his misguided characters, all the while nipping savagely at consumer culture and the executives who believe in "the emotional magma that wells from the core of planet brand." While Guy Swift creates a marketing campaign for border police that imagines Europe as an "upscale, exclusive continent," Arjun Mehta is fighting to keep his scrap of the American dream. Kunzru's first novel, The Impressionist, was received enthusiastically (it was shortlisted for numerous awards, and won quite a few others, including the Somerset Maugham Award), and this follow-up will not disappoint fans of his stirring social commentary.

821.521 MA noo MA, Jian, 1953 - 821.521 The noodle maker / Ma Jian ; translated from the Chinese by Flora Drew. - 1st American ed. - New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006. - 181 p. ; 22 cm Originally published: London : Chatto and Windus, 2004. ISBN 0-312-42479-5

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821.521 MASUD aut MASUDA, Sayo, 1925- 821.521 Autobiography of a geisha / Sayo Masuda ; translated from the Japanese by G.G. Rowley. - London : Vintage, 2006. - vii, 199 p. : ill., maps, 1 port. ; 18 cm Translated from the 1995 Japanese rev. ed. _ Reprinted with a new epilogue dated 2005. _ Originally published: New York : Columbia University Press, 2003 ; London : Vintage, 2004, Formerly CIP.Uk. ISBN 0099490773 (pbk) :

821.521 MISHI dea MISHIMA, Yukio 821.521 Death in Midsummer : and Other Stories / Yukio Mishima. - twenty eigth printing New York : New Directions Publishing Corporation, 2006. - 181 str ; 20 cm First published in 1966. ISBN 0-8112-0117-1

821.521 MISHI sai MISHIMA, Yukio 821.521 The sailor who fell from grace with the sea / Yukio Mishima ; translated from the Japanese by John Nathan. - London : Vintage, 2000 : (2006 printing). - 181 p. ; 18 cm Originally published: New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 1965, $aFormerly CIP.$5Uk ISBN 0099492695

821.521 MORRI the MORRIS, Ivan I 821.521 The world of the shining prince : [court life in ancient Japan] / Ivan Morris ; with a new introduction by Barbara Ruch. - New York : Kodansha International, 1994. - xxvii, 336 p. : ill. ; 22 cm. - (Kodansha globe)

ISBN 1568360290

821.521 MURAK bli MURAKAMI, Haruki 821.521 Blind willow, sleeping woman [twenty-four stories] / Haruki Murakami ; translated from the Japanese by Philip Gabriel and Jay Rubin. - 1st ed., [English ed.]. - New York : Knopf, 2006. - ix, 333 p. ; 25 cm

ISBN 9781400044610 "Everything I write is a strange tale," Haruki Murakami says in his preface to this collection. Admittedly, his fusion of Eastern and Western elements of story and reality to create a uniquely surreal landscape of human and otherworldly experiences may be a little too strange for some readers. In addition, he asks more questions than he answers about his protagonists and their unusual situations. Yet those accustomed to his weird ways will find a lot to enjoy here, including many of his most popular New Yorker pieces. While it's clear that many of the stories are sketches made in preparation for the grand artistry of his novels, most, if not all, stand very well on their own.

821.521 MURAK MURAKAMI, Haruki 821.521 Dance dance dance [a novel] / by Haruki Murakami ; translated by Alfred Birnbaum. - 1st Vintage international ed. - New York : Vintage Books, 2003. - 393 p. ; 21 cm original title Dansu Dansu Dansu. ISBN 9780099448761 In this impressive sequel to A Wild Sheep Chase , Murakami displays his talent to brilliant effect. The unnamed narrator, a muddled freelance writer, is 34 and no closer to finding happiness than he was in the previous book. Divorced, bereaved and abandoned by his various lovers, he is drawn to the Dolphin Hotel--a strange and lonely establishment where Kiki, a woman he once lived with, "upped and vanished." Kiki and the Sheep Man, an odd fellow who wears a sheepskin and speaks in a toneless rush, visit the narrator in visions that lead him to two mysteries, one metaphysical (how to survive the unsurvivable) and the other physical (a call girl's murder). In his searchings, he encounters a clairvoyant 13-year-old, her misguided parents and a one-armed poet. All the hallmarks of Murakami's greatness are here: restless and sensitive characters, disturbing shifts into altered reality, silky smooth turns of phrase and a narrative with all the momentum of a roller coaster. If Mishima had ever learned the value of gentleness, this is the sort of page-turner he might have written.

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821.521 MURAK ele MURAKAMI, Haruki 821.521 The elephant vanishes / stories by Haruki Murakami ; translated from the Japanese by Alfred Birnbaum and Jay Rubin. - London : Hamish Hamilton, 1993. - 327p. ; 22cm

ISBN 0-099-44875-0 This collection of 15 stories from a popular Japanese writer, perhaps best known in this country for A Wild Sheep Chase ( LJ 11/15/89), gives a nice idea of his breadth of style. The work maintains the matter-of-fact tone reminiscent of American detective fiction, balancing itself somewhere between the spare realism of Raymond Carver and the surrealism of Kobo Abe. These are not the sort of stories that one thinks of as "Japanese"; the intentionally Westernized style and well-placed reference to pop culture gives them a contemporary and universal feel. Engaging, thought-provoking, humorous, and slyly profound, these skillful stories will easily appeal to American readers but must present something of a challenge to the Japanese cultural establishment. At their best, however, they serve to dispel cultural stereotypes and reveal a common humanity. Recommended for libraries with an interest in contemporary fiction. - Mark Woodhouse, Elmira Coll. Lib., N.Y.

821.521 MURAK kaf MURAKAMI, Haruki 821.521 Kafka on the Shore / Haruki Murakami. - London : Random House, 2005. - 615 str ; 18 cm English translation from japanese: Umibe No Kafuke. ISBN 0-099-494096 Kafka on the Shore follows the fortune of two remarkable characters. Kafka Tamura runs away from home at fifteen, under the shadow of his father's dark prophecy. The ageing Nakata, tracker of lost cats, who never recovered from a bizarre childhood affliction, finds his simple life suddenly turned upside down. They parallel odysseys are enriched thoughout by vivid accomplices and mesmerishing dramas. Cat converse with people: fish tumble from the sky; aforrest harbours soldiers apparently un-aged since WWII. There is a savage killing, but the identity of both victim an killer is a riddle.

821.521 MURAK pie MURAKAMI, Ryu, 1952- 821.521 Piercing / Ryu Murakami ; translated by Ralph McCarthy. - New York, N.Y. : Penguin Books, 2007. - 185 p. ; 19 cm. - "First published in Japan by Gentosha 1994" ISBN 9780747593133 Kawashima Masayuki is a successful graphic designer living in Tokyo with his loving wife, Yoko, and their baby girl. Outwardly, their lives are a picture of happiness and contentment, but every night while his wife sleeps Kawashima creeps from his bed and watches over the baby's crib with an ice pick in his hand and an almost visceral desire to use it. One particular night, as this struggle unfolds once more, Kawashima makes a decision to confront his demons, and sets into motion an uncontrollable chain of events seeming to lead inexorably to murder.

821.521 MURAK slu MURAKAMI, Haruki 821.521 Slušai pesnia vetra / Haruki Murakami ; Prevod s jap. Vadima Smolenskia Moskva : Izdatelstvo3ksmo, 2006. - 160 str ; 17 str Original title: Kaze no uta wo kike. ISBN 5-699-17207-6

821.521 MURAK the MURAKAMI, Haruki 821.521 The wind-up bird chronicle / Haruki Murakami : translated from the Japanese / by Jay Rubin. - London : The Harvill Press, 1998. - 609p. ; 24cm First published: U.S.A.: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997. ISBN 0-099-44879-3 Bad things come in threes for Toru Okada. He loses his job, his cat disappears, and then his wife fails to return from work. His search for his wife (and his cat) introduces him to a bizarre collection of characters, including two psychic sisters, a possibly unbalanced teenager, an old soldier who witnessed the massacres on the Chinese mainland at the beginning of the Second World War, and a very shady politician. Haruki Murakami is a master of subtly disturbing prose. Mundane events throb with menace, while the bizarre is accepted without comment. Meaning always seems to be just out of reach, for the reader as well as for the characters, yet one is drawn inexorably into a mystery that may have no solution. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is an extended meditation on themes that appear throughout Murakami's earlier work. The tropes of popular culture, movies, music, detective stories, combine to create a work that explores both the surface and the hidden depths of Japanese society at the end of the 20th century. If it were possible to isolate one theme in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, that theme would be responsibility. The atrocities committed by the Japanese army in China keep rising to the surface like a repressed memory, and Toru Okada himself is compelled by events to take responsibility for his actions and struggle with his essentially passive nature.

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If Toru is supposed to be a Japanese Everyman, steeped as he is in Western popular culture and ignorant of the secret history of his own nation, this novel paints a bleak picture. Like the winding up of the titular bird, Murakami slowly twists the gossamer threads of his story into something of considerable weight.

821.521 MURAK MURAKAMI, Haruki 821.521 Underground / Haruki Murakami ; translated from the Japanese by Alfred Birnbaum and Philip Gabriel. - 1st Vintage international ed. - New York : Vintage International, 2001. - x, 366 p., map ; 21 cm

ISBN 978-0-099-46109-8 On March 20, 1995, followers of the religious cult Aum Shinrikyo unleashed lethal sarin gas into cars of the Tokyo subway system. Many died, many more were injured. This is acclaimed Japanese novelist Murakami's (The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, etc.) nonfiction account of this episode. It is riveting. What he mostly does here, however, is listen to and record, in separate sections, the words of both victims, people who "just happened to be gassed on the way to work," and attackers. The victims are ordinary people bankers, businessmen, office workers, subway workers who reflect upon what happened to them, how they reacted at the time and how they have lived since. Some continue to suffer great physical disabilities, nearly all still suffer great psychic trauma. There is a Rashomon-like quality to some of the tales, as victims recount the same episodes in slightly different variations. Cumulatively, their tales fascinate, as small details weave together to create a complex narrative. The attackers are of less interest, for what they say is often similar, and most remain, or at least do not regret having been, members of Aum. As with the work of Studs Terkel, which Murakami acknowledges is a model for this present work, the author's voice, outside of a few prefatory comments, is seldom heard. He offers no grand explanation, no existential answer to what happened, and the book is better for it. This is, then, a compelling tale of how capriciously and easily tragedy can destroy the ordinary, and how we try to make sense of it all. (May 1)Forecast: Publication coincides with the release of a new novel by Murakami (Sputnik Sweetheart, Forecasts, Mar. 19), and several national magazines, including Newsweek and GQ, will be featuring this fine writer. This attention should help Murakami's growing literary reputation.

821.521 MURAK MURAKAMI, Haruki 821.521 What I talk about when I talk about running [a memoir] / by Haruki Murakami ; translated from the Japanese by Philip Gabriel. - 1st U.S. ed. - New York, NY, Alfred A. Knopf, 2008. - vii, 179 p. ; 20 cm. - "Originally published in Japan ... by BungeishunjuŻ, Ltd., Tokyo, in 2007"--T.p. verso, "A Borzoi book.". ISBN 9780307269195

821.521 NAKAN tra NAKANO, Hitori 821.521 Train Man : The Novel / Hitori Nakano ; Translated by Bonnie Elliott. - New York : Ballantine Books, 2006. - 403 str. ; 19 cm Naslov originala: Densha otoko ISBN 987-0-345-49869-4 This is a true story of love for the internet generation - the international bestseller that sold over a million copies. This wonderfully unique book from Japan derives from a series of postings over a three-month period to a particularly computer-geeky thread of 2 Channel, the world's largest anonymous Message Board. The events all took place in Tokyo. One day a shy otaku computer geek mentioned on the message forum how he had met a girl on a subway train. As things developed he continued to post updates to the message board. He gained the nickname 'Train Man'. With each update from bashful Train Man, his fellow correspondents throw in own colourful speculations, boyish encouragements, tongue-in-cheek warnings, and fabulously inventive ascii text drawings. Train Man tries to take on board their comments as events unfold. Eventually he finds love with the girl, Hermes, and reveals to her the entire history of the thread. The true identity of Train Man remains a closely guarded secret.

821.521 RUBIN har RUBIN, Jay, 1941 - 821.521 Haruki Murakami and the music of words / Jay Rubin. - London : Vintage, 2005. - ix, 361 p. : port. ; 20 cm Originally published: London: Harvill, 2002. ISBN 0099455447 This book is about 50% Rubin's analysis of Murakami's work, about 30% biographical, about 10% about the translation work and differences between Japanese and English, and about 10% "interview style" where we get a few inside details on The Man Himself. This much is true: Anyone expecting a lot of information about The Man Himself should be a little disappointed. The book bills itself as granting

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more info than it does. I suspect this is out of Rubin's own deferrence to Murakami's privacy. He treads delicately on the info of the author's life in the biographical sections and when we do get a smattering of Murakami's own words about himself (and it's rare), it feels like nuggets culled from stray emails rather than from a sustained closeness of the translator to his author-friend. That's a shame, but it doesn't mar the book, which is a real resource for English readers without a real roadmap of his lesser works. Knowing which stories I need to seek out is so much easier, and understanding the significance of Murakami's first two novels is much better illuminated than before

895 RICE, beh RICE, Jonathan, 1947- 821.521 Behind the Japanese mask-- [how to understand the Japanese culture-- and work successfully with it] / Jonathan Rice. - Oxford : HowToBooks, c2004. - x, 164 p. : ill., 1 port. ; 24 cm Formerly CIP.$5Uk. ISBN 1857039688 (pbk)

895.6 DAZAI no DAZAI, Osamu, 1909-1948 821.521 No longer human.. / Osamu Dazai ; Translated by Donald Keene. - 2. Iizd. First Tuttle edition, 1981 177 p. ; 21 cm (Tuttle Classics) Translation of Ningen shikkaku. ISBN 4-8053-0756-0 This novel (inspired by Dazai's autobiography and written in the first person) tells the story of one person who feels since childhood utterly alien from his fellow human beings but learn to put a face to hide his deep sense of alienation and his despise for the hypocrisy of society. He feels incapable to belong to a human society (hence the title). Follows a descent into alcohol, drugs, suicide as the main character enters into aldulthood. The story did remind me a little of Camus' The stranger (l'etranger) in so far as both are a tale of a person alienated from the society at large. But Dazai also explore the sense of self-loathing and self-destruction and is therefore much darker (Camus sounds cheerful in comparison). Dazai is known as a dark post-war writer and indeed this is a dark novel.

895.6 HANRA los HANRAHAN, Catherine 821.521 Lost girls & love hotels [a novel] / Catherine Hanrahan. - 1st ed. - New York, HarperPerennial, c2006. - 208, 16 p. ; 21 cm. -

ISBN 0060846844 Margaret, a 20-something Canadian, has fled to Tokyo to escape her past and now instructs aspiring stewardesses in "cabin-crew and airline interview English." By night, she numbs herself with drink and dangerous sex. Her story, as readers learn in alternating chapters, features an imploding family and a dangerously schizophrenic brother. Though Margaret is less than convincing as a narrator, her surreal Tokyo encounters propel the book: a barkeep who communicates with lines from Beatles songs, speakers in public bathrooms that broadcast flushing sounds, a rent-a-dog park, a Western slacker who gigs as a fake wedding minister. And, of course, the automated love hotels that Margaret frequents with a Japanese gangster. The plot lurches forward—Margaret becomes fixated on a missing Western girl, gets fired and hooks up with a man whose name she never learns before her roommate flees. There's redemption to be gained, but the fractured narrative feels like a string of bizarre moments.

895.6 MONKE mon MONKEY brain 821.521 Monkey brain sushi [new tastes in Japanese fiction] / edited by Alfred Birnbaum. - 1st ed. - Tokyo ; New York, Kodansha, 2002. - 304 p. : ill. ; 22 cm. -

ISBN 4770028903

As translator and editor Birnbaum aptly points out in his stylish introduction, ``Originality--as distinct from creativity--has never been a Japanese obsession; the society works best within found forms.'' Accordingly, the collection reflects what may seem to Westerners an almost decadent interest in pastiche, in literary appropriation and in the flouting of tradition for its own sake. Hipper than thou, most of the 11 young writers represented here appear out to shock an easily titillated society. Amy Yamada, Japan's answer to Mary Gaitskill, dishes up the words of a ``queen'' employed at an S & M club; in a piece by Masahiko Shimada, described as ``a parody for which there is no original,'' the narrator announces early on, ``My genitals were made for masturbation. Masturbation, my genitals, and my room form a fatal triangle.'' Other contributions are slightly effete: Gen'ichiro Takahashi, for example, serves up a witty deconstructionist critique. Satire reigns supreme, and the most successful and ``original'' entry is by the best-known contributor, Haruki Murakami, who uses mass-media images to deflate the life of an ad man.

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895.6 MURA aft MURAKAMI, Haruki 821.521 Afutadaku ; Murakami Haruki. - Tokyo : EMI Music Publishing Japan Ltd., 2006. - 294 p. ; 15cm

ISBN 406275519x Murakami's 12th work of fiction is darkly entertaining and more novella than novel. Taking place over seven hours of a Tokyo night, it intercuts three loosely related stories, linked by Murakami's signature magical-realist absurd coincidences. When amateur trombonist and soon-to-be law student Tetsuya Takahashi walks into a late-night Denny's, he espies Mari Asai, 19, sitting by herself, and proceeds to talk himself back into her acquaintance. Tetsuya was once interested in plain Mari's gorgeous older sister, Eri, whom he courted, sort of, two summers previously. Murakami then cuts to Eri, asleep in what turns out to be some sort of menacing netherworld. Tetsuya leaves for overnight band practice, but soon a large, 30ish woman, Kaoru, comes into Denny's asking for Mari: Mari speaks Chinese, and Kaoru needs to speak to the Chinese prostitute who has just been badly beaten up in the nearby "love hotel" Kaoru manages. Murakami's omniscient looks at the lives of the sleeping Eri and the prostitute's assailant, a salaryman named Shirakawa, are sheer padding, but the probing, wonderfully improvisational dialogues Mari has with Tetsuya, Kaoru and a hotel worker named Korogi sustain the book until the ambiguous, mostly upbeat dénouement.

895.6 MURAK coi MURAKAMI, Ryu, 1952 - 821.521 Coin locker babies / Ryu Murakami ; translated by Stephen Snyder. - 1st ed. - Tokyo ; New York : Kodansha International : Distributed in the United States by Kodansha America, 1995. - 393 p. ; 24 cm

ISBN 4-7700-2896-9 The third of this prolific Japanese author's 30 novels to appear in English, this is a cyber-Bildungsroman of playful breadth and uncertain depth. Two mothers abandon their infant boys in the Yokohama train station's coin lockers. The reader is not spared the mechanics of packaging a child in a parcel, nor the grim details of any of the other episodes of discomfort and suffering which follow in incremental doses, though always with such whimsy that the reader wonders whether or not to be offended. The heroes, Kiku and Hashi, grow up together; but, beyond their bizarre beginnings, they couldn't be more different. Kiku becomes a homicidal pole-vaulter whose inner rage gives him unusual speed and strength, but which also fosters an obsession with murder and a secret drug that sets any creature into a killing frenzy. The more delicate Hashi strives to find his mother, supporting himself as a prostitute in Toxitown?a chemical disaster zone insulated from Tokyo by a wall and armed guards?until one of his johns discovers his musical talent and makes him a star. The settings seem lifted from Japanese animation epics: an abandoned mining town, an underwater tunnel and a retreat in the mountains. At times, Murakami rambles, as in the case of a taxi driver's pointless monologue or the long interviews with women who might be Hashi's mother. Such digressions, however, are less the product of careless craft than of a lush and frantic imagination overwhelming its own project. Though expansive and exciting as its scope, the novel is as unfocused as its troubled heroes.

895.6 MURAK in MURAKAMI, Ryu, 1952 - 821.521 In the miso soup / Ryu Murakami ; translated by Ralph McCarthy. - London : Bloomsbury, 2005. - 180 p. ; 21 cm

ISBN 0747578885 Ryu Murakami has never written about violence, but about the causes of violence - and not direct, ordinary causes, but the underlying psychological tensions in human beings which lead to violence. The psycopath in the novel, Frank, describes violent tendencies in children as the product of anxiety, an attempt to prove that the world will not collapse when some horrible act is perpetrated. 'Anxiety' is certainly a good term to describe the book, or any of Murakami's - every scene vibrates with an eerie strangeness, and human relations take unexpected turns. In the end, the product is somewhat mystifying, but provides a good read and ample food for thought. What it does best is pair images of extreme innocence and extreme violence, produce alternate reactions of sympathy and disgust, and force a reader to suspend all kinds of belief and judgement until the page-turner narrative is over. Still, what it isn't is a thriller, a character study, or a book with any clear message. The character of Frank could be taken to represent many things - the destructive effect of confused intentions on an insular culture, or a human loneliness common to both this American and the Japanese protagonist, or any misfit lashing out against a restrictive society. In any case, it's one of the most fascinating contemporary novels I've discovered.

895.6 NAGAI gei NAGAI, Kafu, 1879-1959 821.521 Geisha in rivalry / Kafu Nagai. - 1st American ed. Rutland, Vt., : C. E. Tuttle Co., [1963]. - 206 p. : illus. ; 22 cm

ISBN 0-8048-3324-9 Geisha in Rivalry, first published in 1918, is set against the backdrop of Tokyo's Shimbashi geisha district. The story of three geisha, imperious Rikiji, gaudy Kikuchiyo, and the nalve heroine Komayo, Geisha in Rivalry follows them in their search for a place in a world that offers no easy route of escape from their profession. With a full cast of vivid characters playing out their dramas of illicit love, shady intrigue and unrelenting rivalry, Geisha in Rivalry is the sordid but fascinating tale of Komayo, her lovers, and the women who conspire to steal them from her.

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895.6 OGAWA the OGAWA, Yoko, 1962 - 821.521 The diving pool [three novellas] / Yoko Ogawa ; translated by Stephen Snyder. - 1st ed. - London : Harvill Secker, 2008. - 164 p. ; 21 cm

ISBN 978184655172 In this first book-length translation into English, Japanese author Ogawa's three polished tales demonstrate her knack for a crafty, suspenseful hook. Each is narrated in the listless, emotionally remote voice of a young woman, such as the high schooler of the title story whose infatuation with her foster brother, Jun, prompts her to obsessively observe his diving practice. As the daughter of religious parents who run an orphanage, Aya feels alienated from the workings of the so-called Light House and finds an outlet for her frustration in romantic fantasy about Jun as well as in tormenting—shockingly—an orphan baby. The underhandedly creepy Dormitory is narrated by a Tokyo wife who begins nursing the ailing, armless one-legged manager at her old college dormitory. The manager's increasingly alarming tale of love for one of the renters, now vanished, enthralls the wife. Pregnancy Diary offers a bit of levity, narrated by a young unmarried woman whose rage toward her pregnant sister take the form of cooking her grapefruit jam prepared from fruit treated with a chromosome-altering chemical. Ogawa's tales possess a gnawing, erotic edge.

895.6 READ rea EMMERICH, Michael 821.521 Read real Japanese fiction [short stories by contemporary writers] / edited by Michael Emmerich ; narrated by Reiko Matsunaga. - 1st ed. - Tokyo ; New York : Kodansha International, 2008. - 143, 112 p. : ill. ; 21 cm. + + 1 CD (4 3/4 in.)

ISBN 4770030584 Collection of short stories by cutting-edge writers to make reading Japanese easier than ever. Includes profiles of the individual writers - including Hiromi Kawakami, Otsuichi, Banana Yoshimoto and Yoko Tawada, amongst others - placing the stories in context and enriching the reader's understanding of modern Japanese literature. Each double-page spread contains everything a reader needs to enjoy contemporary written Japanese: original text, phrase-level translations and endnotes explaining tricky grammar. Built-in J-E learner s dictionary provides translations of every single word appearing in the book.

895.6 SAKUR inno SAKURAI, Ami 821.521 Innocent world / Ami Sakurai / translated by Steven Clark. - New York : Vertical Inc., 1996. - 124 str ; 22 cm Originaly published in Japanese as Inosento Warudo by Gentosha, Tokyo, 1996. ISBN 9781932234145 Ami seems to have a good life. The daughter of successful parents, she is given everything that she wants. Yet there appears to be something missing because when the opportunity arises that she can make lots of extra money from being an underage prostitute she jumps at it. However, the men she sleeps with offer her little solace so she oftentimes separates her mind from her body while the men, normally middle-aged businessmen have their way with her. The only person with whom she can receive true sexual satisfaction from is her mentally handicapped older brother.

Ami and her brother continue to have sex with each other under their parents' roof until they are discovered. Takuya, her older brother is forced to move to his aunt's home in Yokohama, but Ami only increases the number of clients she sleeps with in order to make enough money to visit her older brother. Ami considers Takuya to be the only person with whom she can truly find satisfaction; not only in a sexual way, but on a spiritual level as well. However, when she becomes pregnant with her brother's baby, Ami is left to decide on her own whether or not to keep the child.

I purchased this book a few months ago because Vertical Books offers a signed edition. Although it is definitely not a great piece of writing, Innocent World is proof that publishers are beginning and willing to translate books that do not belong to the Mishima, Tanizaki, and Kawabata mold or even the Murakami H., Yoshimoto, Murakami R. mold. With the translation of this work and Kanehara Hitomi's Snakes and Earrings hopefully the American audience will be exposed to a wider range of Japanese literature than what is currently available.

As for the book itself...I consider it a decent, fast read. Besides the main character, Ami, the books other characters come off being pretty flat. However, considering Ami tends to know very little about the individuals around her, including her own parents, maybe the lack of character detail stems from the isolated nature of the main character than lack of depth writing by the author.

895.6 TOKYO tok TOKYO fragments 821.521 Tokyo fragments / Ryuji Morita ... [et al.] ; translated by Giles Murray. - Tokyo ; London : IBC, 2004. - 206 p. : 1 map ; 22 cm

ISBN 4925080881 Tokyo is far more than streets and skyscrapers full of gray-suited businessmen, super-trendy teenagers, and schoolgirls in sailor-suit uniforms. Five of Japan's most popular contemporary fiction writers-Ryuji Morita, Tomomi Muramatsu, Mariko Hayashi, Makoto Shiina, and Chiya Fujino-present their vision of life in different quarters of Japan's capital. From Tokyo's mean streets to its bars and elegant cafes, here are stories that measure the pulse of the city while dissecting its heart. These five stories break down the metropolis into fragments of experience that anyone can relate to and enjoy. It is also the chance to sample these leading Japanese authors whose work has never before appeared in English.

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895.6 YAMAD bed YAMADA, Amy, 1959 - 821.521 Bedtime eyes / by Amy Yamada ; translated by Yumi Gunji and Marc Jardine. - 1st ed. - New York, N.Y. : St. Martin's Press, 2006. - 218 p. ; 22 cm Naslov originala : Beddo taimu aizu ISBN 0-312-366712-1 Originally published in Japan in the mid-1980s (before Trash), the three novellas in this harsh, vivid collection each feature a Japanese woman in a destructive relationship with an African-American man. The title novella presents Kim, a nightclub singer who falls for a navy deserter called Spoon. As Kim and Spoon's coke-fueled sexual idyll spirals into violence, Kim remains desperate to keep him. Another sadomasochistic relationship forms the core of "The Piano Player's Eyes," about a woman named Ruiko who dominates her "new toy," Leroy Jones. When he returns to Japan two years later as a noted jazz pianist, they vie for the upper hand in the relationship, with devastating results. "Jesse," a wrenching story that unfolds more warmly than the previous two, revolves around a turbulent threesome: Rick, an alcoholic; his young girlfriend, Coco; and the title character, his 11-year-old son. Coco first sees Jesse as competition, but as she realizes the father-son bond trumps that between lovers, she struggles to win the boy's approval. In stark, profane prose, Yamada complicates racial stereotypes—the hypersexual black man, the submissive or dragon lady Asian woman—as she illustrates how cultural and racial difference amplify "the extraordinary power of sexual curiosity."

895.6 YOSHI on YOSHIMURA, Akira, 1927-2006 821.521 On parole / Akira Yoshimura ; translated from the Japanese by Stephen Snyder. - 1st ed. - New York : Harcourt, Inc., c1999. - 244 p. ; 21 cm Orig. title : Kari-shakuho ISBN 0151002703 As in his previous novel, Shipwrecks, Yoshimura uses an unusual situation to raise provocative questions about individual responsibility and society's treatment of the disenfranchised. From the start, the writer exhibits the technical excellence that has made him a bestselling author in Japan as he describes the experiences of Shiro Kikutani, a man who has just been released to a lifetime of parole after spending 16 years in prison for murdering his adulterous wife. Kikutani's time in jail has stunted his ability to act independently, so that the first chapter finds him in a halfway house, suffering abdominal pains because he is unable to walk from his room to the bathroom down the hall. "The realization that he could open the door of his own free will and walk to the toilet without being watched by a guard filled him with something approaching terror." Under the tutelage of his gentle parole officers, Kikutani gradually overcomes this fear and others, learning to walk out of lockstep and ride escalators, handle money, keep a job (once a teacher, he is demoted to working as a janitor in a chicken factory). Yoshimura describes each of these episodes in minute detail, patiently creating a finely calibrated portrait of a taciturn man whose emotional life has been blighted by his imprisonment and whose hard-won equanimity unravels under the relentless demands of those around him. His parole officers pressure him to get married after a long adjustment period, but when his new wife insists he must repent of his crime, which he always considered inevitable and not his fault, he is unable to explain his true emotions. Under increasing stress, he snaps. Yoshimura's evocations of Japan's cities, jails and workplaces are precise, and his spare, sensual prose has all the intensity of poetry, so that the mundane circumstances of Kikutani's reintegration hold the reader's attention despite the slow pacing. And as events move inexorably toward the novel's violent climax, a vivid psychological portrait emerges of a man no longer able to express his own will.

985.6 MIYAB sha MIYABE, Miyuki 821.521 Shadow family / Miyuki Miyabe ; translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter. - Tokyo, Japan ; New York, N.Y. : Kodansha International, 2005. - 203 p. ; 21 cm

ISBN 4770030045

Shadow Family is a compelling murder mystery focusing on the murky world of Internet chat room populated by people from all walks of life attracted by the possibility of being whoever they want to be. Police investigating the double murder of a middle-aged salary man and his college-aged girlfriend discover email correspondence linking the victim with members of an online fantasy family, in which he plays the part of "Dad." Meanwhile, his real-life teenage daughter is assigned police protection after complaining of being stalked. The investigation focuses increasingly on the Shadow family, as there is evidence that the member emerged from the chat room and started meeting up offline. Veteran Desk Sergeant Takegami finds himself unexpectedly in center stage of the investigation after his colleague is hospitalized. Adding to his surprise, he is partnered with his old friend Detective Chikako Ishizu after a break of fifteen years. Working on a hunch, they collaborate to unravel the fine line between fantasy and the harsh reality of Murder. Shadow Family is excellent detective fiction that keeps you guessing until the end. Within a skillful web of intrigue, Miyabe sensitively explores the meaning of family and relationships, and the devastating effect of betrayal.

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821.521-3 MURAK MURAKAMI, Haruki 821.521-31 Južno od granice, zapadno od Sunca / Haruki Murakami ; prevela Maja Šoljan. - Zagreb : Vuković & Runjić, 2003. - 213 str. ; 20 cm Prevedeno prema: South of the border, west of the sun ; Izv. stv. naslov: Kokkyo no minami, taiyo no nishi. ISBN 953-6791-40-4 Hajime je uspješan, oženjen mukarac, vlasnik jazz-kluba "Crvendaćevo gnijezdo", otac dvoje djece. Susret s davnom simpatijom, ljepoticom Šimamoto, iz temelja potresa njegov naizgled stabilan život…

I u ovom romanu Murakami varira svoju opsesivnu temu: možemo li zaista spoznati sebe prije nego što nas neočekivano snažno iskustvo istrgne iz životne rutine? Trijumf Nesvjesnog nad svjesnim trasiranjem života velika je tajna Murakamijeve proze.

"Casablanca prepjevana na japanski… Murakamijev je stil od snovitog tkanja, a svako poglavlje poema je za sebe."The Times "Ova naizgled jednostavna proza puna je skrivenih istina."The New York Times Book Review

821.521-3 MURAK MURAKAMI, Haruki 821.521-31 Kafka na žalu / Haruki Murakami ; preveo Mate Maras. - Zagreb : Vuković & Runjić, 2009. - 490 str. ; 23 cm Prijevod djela: Umibe no Kafuka. ISBN 953-286-035-1 'Kafka na žalu' jedno je od najambicioznijih djela majstora suvremene japanske proze Harukija Murakamija. Ovaj biser metafizičkog realizma nose dva dojmljiva lika: žrtva edipovske frustracije, odbjegli tinejdžer Kafka Tamura i ostarjela luda Nakata, koji se pak nikad nije oporavio od ratnodopske traume, a Kafka ga neobjašnjivo privlači. Ni protagonisti ni čitatelji isprva ne mogu dokučiti tajnu bajkovite odiseje toga dvojca, koju napučuju osebujni likovi i čudesni događaji. U Kafki na žalu mačke govore, prostitutka citira Hegela i radi za sablasnog svodnika, u šumi srećemo vojnike za koje je vrijeme stalo u Drugom svjetskom ratu, s nebesa će se obrušiti pljusak ribe i još koječega. Očekuje nas i surovo ubojstvo. Tko je žrtva? Tko je ubojica? Bez brige, očarani će čitatelj dobiti sve odgovore – skupa s razrješenjem Kafkine i Nakatine sudbine. Jedan će nadmudriti usud, a drugi će dobiti priliku za novi početak.

821.521-31 DAZAI DAZAI, Osamu 821.521-31 Sunce na zalasku / Osamu Dazai ; prijevod sa japanskog Ilija Musulin. - Beograd : Tanesi, 2011. - 144 str ; 20 cm. - (Biblioteka Mabaroši ; Knj. 19) Prijevod djela: Shayo. ISBN 978-86-81567-24-1 Roman Sunce na zalasku zasnovan je na transponovanim elementima piščeve biografije. Pripovedanje u prvom licu ostvareno je na vrlo sugestivan i umetnički uspeo način, pa se zato smatra daje Osamu Dazai usavršio roman u novijoj japanskoj književnosti. Sunce na zalasku pripoveda o nestajanju starog japanskog sveta, odmah posle Drugog svetskog rata, obeleženog vremenom lomova i haosa. Majka kao prava plemkinja tiho i smireno završava svoj vek. Naođi, teški narkoman, umoran od života, nasilno ga prekida, poveravajući tajnu svojoj sestri: bio je iskreno zaljubljen u suprugu slikara, koja je opisana kao Bogorodica. Pisac Uehara, u kome ne teče plava krv, čeka svoj neumitni kraj - smrt zbog tuberkuloze. Uprkos nihilističkom pogledu na svet, koji ne iskupljuje ni ideologija ni vera, Osamu Dazai pri kraju romana ostavlja tračak poslednje nade: rađanje novog života. Dok svi umiru, jedino Kazuko, glavni lik i ujedno pripovedač romana, nastavlja da živi, očekujući dete.

895.3-31 MURAK MURAKAMI, Haruki 821.521-31 Tvrdo kuhana zemlja čedesa i Kraj Svijeta / Haruki Murakami ; preveo prema engleskom prijevodu Dinko Telećan. - Zagreb : Vuković & Runjić, 2005. - 363 str. ; 22 cm Prevedeno prema: Hard-boiled wonderland and The end of the world. ISBN 953-6791-75-7 U OVOME HIPERAKTIVNOM I NEUMORNO DOMIŠLJATOM ROMANU NAJPOPULARNIJI (I NAJKONTROVERZNIJI) JAPANSKI KNJIŽEVNIK PONIRE U VRTLOG ZAPADNJAČKE SVIJESTI. OVO REMEK-DJELO NAJAVLJUJE AMBICIJE JEDNOG OD VODEĆIH SVJETSKIH ROMANOPISACA DANAŠNJICE.

821. 521 OTSUI cal OTSUICHI, 1978 - 821.521-31=163.42 Calling you / story by Otsu-Ichi ; [illustrations, Miyako Hasami ; Translation, Agnes Yoshida]. - Los Angeles, CA : Tokyopop, 2007-. - v. <1 > : ill. ; 18 cm "First published in Japan in 2001 by Kadokawa Shoten ..., Tokyo"-- Vol. 1, t. p. verso. ISBN 1598169319

This is a great collection of short stories. They're all pretty heartbreaking though. The first one, which is

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the title of the novel, is about a girl who uses a cellphone in her mind to talk to other people. Pretty out there i know, but it's easily the best one of the three and it almost made me cry. It's kind of a love story. The second story is about two boys who are friends and discover that one of them has a very strange ability: he can absorb other people's injury's onto himself. They go around healing people, but it goes a little out of hand. This one has a really good message and it's also very heart stirring and is probably better than the first one but i prefer love stories so that's why the first one is still my fave. I did not like the last story. It's about a girl, who was at a hospital and turns into a flower who sings..... it just wasnt as good. However Otsuichi is an excellent author and i do love the magical elements that are in all of the stories. You will enjoy these stories, just keep a tissue box handy.

821.521 ICHIK be ICHIKAWA, Takuji, 1962 - 821.521-31=163.42 Be with you / Takuji Ichikawa ; translated by Terry Gallagher. - San Francisco, Calif. : VIZ Media, 2006. - 263 p. : ill. ; 20 cm

ISBN 1421507625 (hardcover) "Soon I won't be with you any longer," says Takumi's 29-year-old wife Mio, "but when the rainy season returns, I will come back to see how the two of you are getting along." Takumi is a troubled young man, struggling to live a normal life with his six-year-old son Yuji after the untimely death of his wife. Along with the emotional and physical distress of losing Mio, Takumi has other serious emotional issues with which to contend: He often forgets things which he knows he shouldn't, he cannot ride in any vehicle or enter movie theatres lest he be conquered by crushing anxiety, and he simply has no idea how to properly perform various household tasks such as laundry, cooking, or cleaning. After a year has passed since his wife's death, Takumi and Yuji simply adapt to wearing slightly-stained clothing and eating food which is all but inedible. And then, during the rainy season, the two happen upon a petite, lost woman in the woods near their walking path - a woman who looks an awful lot like Mio. This woman, however, has no memory. Not of an earlier life, not of Takumi or Yuji, and absolutely nothing of herself. And so, Takumi takes her back into his home to be his wife, and to be Yuji's mother. On the surface, the story sounds remarkably droll. The premise, while not by any stretch a new one, does have its own unique set of circumstances. First of all, none of the characters are depicted in a spectacular manner. Takumi with his many problems (which dictate his life), Yuki with his co-dependent relapses into infancy, and Mio with an average (almost plain) body and no memories to speak of (with the merest suggestion of a personality, even) - this all lends come credence to the viability of the tale. Barring one lapse in the reader's world of what is possible and what isn't - this could very well be the story of anyone - of any flawed, beautiful person. Particularly striking about this book is how the story absorbs the reader, all while lacking any customary climax or traditional conflict. Our narrator (Takumi) understands how this story will end, and does not hide it from us throughout the narrative. There are no shocks or jolts, or even questions of what will happen next - all is foretold from the start. It is, in fact, quite a delicately-woven story, as hauntingly beautiful and as spectral as the reappearance of Mio herself. It is slow and deliberate and perfect. Simply stated, this is a grown-up autobiographical version of My Neighbor Totoro which has taken on many forms in its native Japan: a cinematic movie, a television series, and a Manga (recently adapted for English-speaking audiences by VIZ Media as well). Structurally, this novel does tend to take awkward page-breaks (often in the middle of a conversation), and closing quotes before a character has finished talking (leading to some mild confusion as to who is speaking). Due to its consistency, this cannot be attributed to the odd typographical error, but a deliberate spacing. However, for a book of this value, these minor transgressions can be overlooked without too much difficulty. Overall, a wonderful effort - a book well worth reading on a rainy weekend in the spring.

821.521 MURAK lov MURAKAMI, Haruki 821.521-31=163.42 Lov na divlju ovcu / Haruki Murakami ; s japanskoga preveo Vojo Šindolić. - Zagreb : Vuković & Runjić, 2006. - 340 str. ; 20 cm Prijevod djela: Hitsuji o meguru boken. ISBN 953-6791-87-0

821.521-31=163.42 MISHIMA, Yukio 821.521-31=163.42 Ispovijedi maske [roman] / Yukio Mishima ; s japanskog preveo Vojo Šindolić. - Zagreb : Litteris, 2003. ((Zagreb : Grafotisak)). - 253 str. ; 21 cm. - (Biblioteka Europski glasnik) Prijevod djela: Kamen no kokuhaku, Pravo ime autora: Kimitake Hiraoka, Str. 249-253: Pogovor / Vojo Šindolić. ISBN 953-99191-1-8 "Ovo ce bití moj prvi autobiografski roman", kaže Yukio Mishima u bilješci od 2. studenoga 1948. godine. "Okrenut ću k sebi skalpel psihološke analize koji sam izoštrio na zamišljenim ličnostima. Pokusat ću secirati sebe živog. Nadam se da ću postići znanstvenu točnost da bih, po Beaudelaireovim riječima, postao i osuđenik i krvnik.To zahtijeva odlucnost, ali zapušit cu nos i pisati". Brutalnim lirizmom a bez dvoličnosti i pretvaranja, Mishima je tu Odluku dosljedno sproveo u djelo, kapitalno za japansku književnost, razotkrivajući svoju masku seksualne perverzije koja se pretvara u u nagon za smrću i nesposobnost da voli i bude voljen. Premda je njime Yukio Mishima šokirao kritičare koji su se gnušali nad njegovom otvorenošću te tradicionalno japansko društvo, roman "Ispovijedi maske" stvorio je i novu zvijezdu na svodu svjetske književnosti koja otada nije tamnjela.

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821.521-31=163.42 MURAKAMI, Haruki 821.521-31=163.42 Pleši, pleši, pleši / Haruki Murakami ; s japanskoga preveo Vojo Šindolić. - Zagreb : Vuković & Runjić, 2007. - 407 str. ; 20 cm Prijevod djela: Dansu, dansu, dansu. ISBN 978-953-6791-98-9 U ovom impresivnom nastavku romana Lov na divlju ovcu, jedan od najoriginalnijih suvremenih svjetskih pisaca Haruki Murakami ujedinjuje znanstvenu fantastiku, triler i satiru. Neimenovani glavni junak, neprilagođeni tridesetčetverogodišnji rastavljeni usamljenik upušta se u sasvim neobičnu avanturu. Njegova potraga za djevojkom, koja je tajanstveno nestala, ponovno ga dovodi na "mjesto zločina", u Hotel Dupin, u kojemu susreće čudnovate likove s ove ili one strane granice realnosti: nestala djevojka Kiki javlja mu se u vizijama, a pri odgonetavanju još jedne misterije pomažu mu trinaestogodišnja vidovnjakinja, njezini zbunjeni roditelji i pjesnik s jednom rukom…

Murakamijev junak živi u svijetu visoke tehnologije i modernih dostignuća gdje sve stare vrijednosti pod naletom novih nestaju i polako umiru. Svi sastojci koji čine Murakamijevu prozu velikom opet su tu: nemirni i osebujni likovi, uznemirujuća prebacivanja u paralelne stvarnosti, priča koja ubrzava poput vrtuljka… Pleši, pleši, pleši je napeto, ubrzano i zabavno putovanje kroz moderni Japan.

821.521-31=163.42 OE, Kenzaburo 821.521-31=163.42 Osobno iskustvo / Kenzaburo Oe ; s japanskoga prevela i pogovor napisala Mirna Potkovac-Endrighetti. - Labin : Mathias Flacius, 2005. ((Pula : MPS)). - 239 str. ; 21 cm. - (Biblioteka izlazećeg sunca) Prijevod djela: Kojinteki na taiken, Str. 235-238: Osobno iskustvo Kenzabura Oea / Mirna Pokrovac Endrighetti, Bilješka o autoru na omotu. ISBN 953-6875-21-7 U romanu "Osobno iskustvo" japanskog nobelovca Kenzabura Oea pratimo lik glavnog junaka, zvanog Bird, koji proživljava tešku psihičku krizu zbog rođenja djeteta s teškom deformacijom mozga. Odluka koju mora donijeti potpuno će promijeniti njegov život, no Bird, pomalo sanjarski tip koji u slobodno vrijeme mašta o odlasku u Afriku, mora odlučiti: postati otac hendikepiranog djeteta i zauvijek se oprostiti od svog sna, ili pustiti da dijete umre, rastati se od žene i otputovati u Afriku?

821.521-31=163.42 YOSHIMOTO, Banana 821.521-31=163.42 Kitchen / Banana Yoshimoto ; s japanskog prevela Mirna Potkovac-Endrighetti. - Labin : Naklada Matthias, 2000. (Padova : Papergraf). - 119 str. ; 22 cm + + 1 list ispravaka. - (Biblioteka izlazećeg sunca) Prijevod djela: Kitchen, $aPravo ime autorice: Maiko Yoshimoto, $aStr. 111-116: Pogovor / M. Potkovac-Endrigh, $aRječnik: str. 119 ISBN 953-97272-9-4

821.521-31MURAK MURAKAMI, Haruki 821.521-31=163.42 Ljetopis ptice navijalice / Haruki Murakami ; preveo s japanskoga Vojo Šindolić. - Zagreb : Vuković & Runjić, 2011. - 704 str. ; 22 cm. - Prijevod djela: Nejimaki-dori kuronikuru. ISBN 9789532860665 Nesreća nikad ne dolazi sama: Toru Okada je ostao bez posla, mačak mu je nestao, a jednog dana njegova žena Kumiko nije se vratila kući. Tražeći svoju ženu (i svoju mačku), Toru upoznaje svitu bizarnih likova uključjući sestre vidovnjakinje, šašavu djevojku iz susjedstva, ratnog veterana koji je svjedočio masakrima Drugog svjetskog rata i tamnu stranu Kumikina brata Noborua Wataye. A da bi se suočio sa svojom sjenom, Toru će morati i dobro upoznati dno jednog starog isušenog bunara.

Haruki Murakami majstor je suptilno uznemirujuće proze. Svakodnevni događaji bremeniti su prijetnjom, a bizarno se prihvaća bez riječi. Značenje kao da stalno izmiče i čitatelju i likovima, koji su zajedno uvučeni u zagonetku što možda i nema rješenja. Ljetopis Ptice Navijalice razvija teme iz Murakamijevih ranijih romana. Tropi popularne kulture, filmovi, glazba, detektivske priče zajedno tvore djelo koje istražuje i površinu i skrivene dubine japanskog društva s kraja 20. stoljeća. Ako bismo htjeli izdvojiti nit vodilju, bila bi to tema odgovornosti. Zvjerstva što ih je japanska vojska počinila u Kini izlaze na površinu poput potisnuta sjećanja, a Torua događaji natjeraju da nadvlada svoju pasivnu narav. Ako je Toru japanski svatković, ogrezao u zapadnjačku popularnu kulturu i bez pojma o tajnoj povijesti vlastite zemlje, ovaj je roman slika tmurne zbilje. Poput navijanja ptice nastavnice, Murakami polako plete paučinaste niti svoje priče u teško tkanje.

821.521-31=163.42= MURAKAMI, Haruki 821.521-31=163.42=03 Nakon potresa / Haruki Murakami ; prevela Maja Šoljan. - Zagreb : Vuković .111 & Runjić, 2003. ([Zagreb] : Tiskara Puljko). - 213 str. : autorova slika ; 20 cm Prevedeno prema: After the quake; prijevod djela: Kami no kodomo-tachi wa mina odoru.

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ISBN 953-6791-44-7

Početak 1995. prekretnica je za suvremeni Japan, koji doživljava surovo buđenje iz konzumerističkog sna cvjetajuće ekonomije: u samo dva mjeseca stravičan potres koji je pogodio Kobe i teroristički napad otrovnim plinom sarinom u tokijskoj podzemnoj željeznici posve su uništili lažno samopouzdanje nacije. Ti su događaji Harukija Murakamijada se, nakon višegodišnjeg izbivanja uzrokovanog popularnošću romana "Norveška šuma" koji je samozatajnog autora silom pretvorio u pop-zvijezdu, vrati u domovinu i opiše ih u publicističkoj knjizi "Pod zemljom" te zbirci pripovjedaka "Nakon potresa".

895-3=163.41 MURAKAMI, Haruki 821.521-3=163.41 1Q84 : roman / Haruki Murakami ; translated from the japanese by Jay Rubin and Philip Gabriel. - First british edition London : Vintage Books, 2011. - 3 sv. ; 20 cm

ISBN 978-0-099-57807-9 1Q84 (One Q Eighty-Four or ichi-kew-hachi-yon is a novel by Haruki Murakami, first published in three volumes in Japan in 2009–10. The novel quickly became a sensation, with its first printing selling out the day it was released, and reaching sales of one million within a month. The English language edition of all three volumes, with the first two volumes translated by Jay Rubin and the third by Philip Gabriel, was released in North America and the United Kingdom on October 25,011. An excerpt from the novel, "Town of Cats", appeared in the September 5, 2011 issue of The New Yorker magazine. The first chapter of 1Q84 has also been read as an excerpt at Selected Shorts.

The events of 1Q84 take place in Tokyo during a fictionalized 1984, with the first volume set between April and June, the second between July and September, and the third between October and December.

The book opens with Aomame as she catches a taxi in Tokyo on her way to a work assignment, noticing Janáček's Sinfonietta playing on the radio. When the taxi gets stuck in a traffic jam, the driver suggests that she get out of the car and climb down an emergency escape in order to make her important meeting, though he warns her that doing so might change the very nature of reality. Aomame makes her way to a hotel in Shibuya, where she poses as a hotel attendant to kill a hotel guest. She performs the murder with a tool that leaves almost no trace on its victim, leading investigators to conclude that he died a natural death from a heart failure.

Aomame starts to have bizarre experiences, noticing new details about the world that are subtly different. For example, she notices that the Tokyo policemen are carrying semiautomatic pistols now, and she always remembered them carrying revolvers. ...

(Wikipedia)

82-4 DEVID jap DEVIDE, Vladimir 821.521-4 Japanska haiku poezija i njen kulturnopovijesni okvir / Vladimir Devide. - Zagreb : Zagrebačka naklada, 2003. - 366 str. ; 21 cm Bibliografija. ISBN 953-6996-17-0

D HAITA zeč HAITANI, Kenjiro 821.521-93-32 Zečje oči / Kenjiro Haitani ; s japanskog prevela Mirna Potkovac-Endrighetti ; crteži Naomi Takagi. - Labin, Mathias Flacius, 2003. - 212 str. : ilustr. ; 22 cm. - (Biblioteka izlaćega sunca ; knj. 2) Prijevod djela: Usagi no me. ISBN 953-6875-07-1 Uzbuna na planeti Zemlji! Harry Potter ipak nije najveći čarobnjak među dječacima! Najveći čarobnjak dolazi iz Japana, a ime mu je Tetsuzo! On nema čarobni štapić i ne zna prozboriti ni riječ; ali on je stručnjak za muhe! Da, dobro ste pročitali: Za muhe!!! A zajedno sa svojim prijateljima s deponija, Junom, Isaom, Yoshikichijem i drugima, te učiteljicom Kotani i učiteljem Adachijem, zvanim Yakuza, rješava i najsloženije probleme. Upozorenje: Ovo nije bajka! To je priča o životu i o vrijednostima za koje bi ljudi trebali živjeti. No, u zbilji to uglavnom nije tako. Dok profesor Adachi štrajka glađu ne bi li pomogao učenicima, u nekim zemljama profesori štrajkaju - zbog većih plaća!? Ako ste gledali film "Društvo mrtvih pjesnika", onda će vam ova knjiga biti nešto poput nastavka. A profesor Adachi definitivno zakon

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821.521 MURAK MURAKAMI, Haruki 821.521.31=163.42=03 Norveška šuma / Haruki Murakami ; prevela Maja Tančik. - Zagreb : Vuković .111 & Runjić, 2004. - 347 str. ; 20 cm Prevedeno prema: Norwegian wood. - Naslov izvornika: Noruwei no mari ISBN 953-6791-60-9 "NORVEŠKA ŠUMA" NAJPOZNATIJI JE ROMAN HARUKIJA MURAKAMIJA, KULTNA KNJIGA KOJA JE SVE DONEDAVNO BILA NAJVEĆI JAPANSKI BESTSELER UOPĆE. OVA KNJIGA PUNA JE STUDENTSKIH POBUNA, SLOBODNE LJUBAVI, CUGE I POP GLAZBE ŠEZDESETIH. ONA JE TAKOĐER ISTINSKI EMOTIVNA, OPISUJE VRHUNCE, ALI I NAJDUBLJE PADOVE ODRASTANJA.

89 OKAKU knj OKAKURA, Kakuzo 821.521:29 Knjiga o čaju / Kakuzo Okakura ; [prevela Dragana Grozdanić]. - Zagreb : Biovega, 2003. - 123 str. : ilustr ; 17 cm Prijevod djela: The book of tea. ISBN 953-6567-60-1

821,521 MIYAB all MIYABE, Miyuki 821.521=20 All she was worth / Miyuki Miyabe ; translated by Alfred Birnbaum. - Tokyo ; New York : Kodansha International ; New York, N.Y. : Distributed in the US by Kodansha America, 1996. - 296 p. : 24 cm

ISBN 477001922X The horror in this beautifully fashioned tale of stolen identity lies not in the cold-blooded crimes but in the motive?a desperate hunger for consumer goods. Shunsuke Honma, a widowed 43-year-old Tokyo police inspector with a 10-year-old son, is on disability leave. The boring cycle of idleness punctuated by painful physical therapy sessions comes to a halt when a nephew asks for Honma's help in finding his missing fiancee, whom he knows as Shoko Sekine. As Honma's search intensifies, he realizes the fiancee had actually assumed Sekine's identity and possibly killed her. For the American reader, the jewel in this enormously compelling novel is the portrait of working- and middle-class Japanese getting caught in a cycle of astronomical personal debt in order to enjoy the good life. Also eye-opening is Japan's elaborate registry system for keeping track of its citizenry. In order to become Shoko Sekine, the impostor had to perpetrate an ingeniously elaborate series of hoaxes and lies. Honma is tenacious, methodical, an attentive listener with a retentive memory and the ability to connect disparate bits of information. The trail takes him back through the real Sekine's history and into the life of the other woman, whose family ran afoul of vicious loan sharks. Miyabe drives her complex plot with spare prose, combining expert pacing and psychological nuance to ultimately haunting effect. (Feb.) FYI: All She Was worth was named Best Novel of the year and Best Mystery for 1992 in Japan.

821.521 DOWNE DOWNER, Lesley 821.521=20 Women of the pleasure quarters [the secret history of the geisha] / Lesley Downer. - 1st ed. - New York : Broadway Books, c2001. - xiv, 288 p., [16] p. of plates : ill. (some col.) ; 25 cm

ISBN 0767904893 Inspired by Arthur Golden's massively popular Memoirs of a Geisha to "meet the real geisha" in the last stronghold of geisha training in Japan, Downer skillfully intertwines her profiles of Kyoto personalities and tea-house customs with a fluidly written geisha history that's unabashedly aimed at a Western audience. Author of On the Narrow Road and The Brothers: The Hidden World of Japan's Richest Family, Downer was no stranger to the country. However, she found the entrance to the "geisha world" heavily guarded. She writes: "I was always an outsider, I could never step through the looking glass." But small successes (finding the right cakes to present to "the mama," a very powerful geisha) and patience eventually won Downer a place at events that are "utterly closed to outsiders." These included an invitation to a young girl's misedashi ("store opening"), the "rite of passage" from trainee to geisha. We also learn, for example, of the distinction that has developed between a prostitute and a geisha (which translates as "arts person"), who undergoes intense and lengthy apprenticeships in dance and music. Written in dynamic, highly readable prose, the book is supported by exhaustive research and a lengthy bibliography. Readers who were as smitten with Golden's geisha as Downer was will find this good companion reading. Photos.

821.521 GREEN GREENFELD, Karl Taro, 1964 - 821.521=20 Speed tribes [days and nights with Japan's next generation] / Karl Taro Greenfeld. - 1st ed. - New York : HarperCollins, c1994. - xiv, 286 p. ; 25 cm

ISBN 0060170395 Greenfeld, the half-Japanese, half-Caucasian American Tokyo correspondent for The Nation, has written about a little-known, seamy subculture in Japan that became more prominent with the collapse of the "bubble" economy of the 1980s. In 12 compelling chapters, Greenfeld covers the grimier aspects of Tokyo's urban society: organized crime, the nightclub scene, motorcycle gangs (the eponymous bosozoku), computer hackers, ultra-right-wing nationalists, and the porn industry. His focus on individuals brings a sense of immediacy as his high-speed narrative highlights the flaws in Japan's society without

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bashing it. Steven Wardell's forthcoming Rising Sons and Daughters: Life Among Japan's New Young (Plympton Pr. International) focuses on teens in Kyushu and presents a more positive picture of their lives. These two books show Japan as a complex society much more like ours than people may have realized. The absence of an index makes this more suitable for most public libraries. Katharine L. Kan, Aiea P.L., Hawaii

821.521 MURAK aft MURAKAMI, Haruki 821.521=20 After dark / Haruki Murakami ; translated from the Japanese by Jay Rubin. - London : Harvill Secker, 2007. - 201 p. : ill. ; 22 cm

ISBN 9781846550485 Haruki Murakami's twelfth novel is "a short, sleek novel of encounters set it Tokyo during the witching hours between midnight and dawn." It is set in a seven-hour period of real-time. The reader follows a skeletal outline of the interactions between six lost souls. We meet 19-year-old Mari, studying late at night in a Denny's and her sister, Eri, a beautiful model in a semi-comatose state, being watched by someone evil. Other alienated souls of the night include a former fighting champion working at a love hotel, a prostitute, a jazz musician, and a sadistic office worker.

Murakami is an author known for his mysterious characters and minimalism. With this book, however, he was too minimalist, leaving far too much up to the reader for not just interpretation, but invention of a story line. He doesn't provide the reader any conclusions, which is his trademark, but with this book, he has released a lot of story threads, loosely wound together, without the true structure of a novel.

At least it was short and sleek, so it wasn't terribly painful to finish. As a reader, I was left wanting more, left wondering too much about the dream-like nighttime landscape of these characters. The story around the sleeping sister is ostensibly the most eerie, with hints of something terrible that drew her into social withdrawal, but the lack of action or reason behind her coma renders those chapters listless and sluggish.

After Dark was originally released in Japan in 2004, and had Russian, Dutch, Chinese, and French translations before it was released in English in May 2007.

821.521 MURAK MURAKAMI, Ryu, 1952 - 821.521=20 Audition / Ryu Murakami ; translated in english by Ralph McCarthy. - London : Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2009. - 200 str ; 20 cm

ISBN 978-0-7475-8948-8 Documentary-maker Aoyama hasn't dated anyone in the seven years since the death of his beloved wife, Ryoko. Now even his teenage son Shige has suggested he think about remarrying. So when his best friend Yoshikawa comes up with a plan to hold fake film auditions so that Aoyama can choose a new bride, he decides to go along with the idea. Of the thousands who apply, Aoyama only has eyes for Yamasaki Asami, a young, beautiful, delicate and talented ballerina with a turbulent past. But there is more to her than Aoyama, blinded by his infatuation, can see, and by the time he discovers the terrifying truth it may be too late Ryu Murakami delivers his most subtle and disturbing novel yet, confirming him as Japan's master of the psycho-thriller.

821.521 REING chr REINGOLD, Edwin M 821.521=20 Chrysanthemums and thorns [the untold story of modern Japan] / Edwin M. Reingold. - 1st ed. - New York : St. Martin's Press, 1992. - xviii, 298 p., [16] p. of plates : ill. ; 25 cm

ISBN 031208160X In these superb essays, Reingold (coauthor of Made in Japan ) debunks myths and stereotypes about the "inscrutable" Japanese. His disciplined, detailed reporting, rooted in his years as Time magazine's Tokyo bureau chief, steers clear of sociobabble and corrects many common misperceptions. For example: less than 20% of Japanese workers have true lifelong employment; although early education is grueling, once in college many students can and do coast; long office hours are common, but there's more goldbricking than meets the eye; workers have company unions, but they do conduct successful strikes; even in this male-dominated society, 13% of the seats in Tokyo's Metropolitan Assembly are held by women, and sexual harassment cases are prosecuted and won. The popular view of the Japanese as imitators, he argues, undervalues the creative mechanisms involved in successful adaptations. Reingold's gift for clarity and detail provides useful instruction in Japan's labyrinthine power complexes, with their inducements for graft and vice, and in its stressed financial and political structures. Sections on sexuality and family life offer fresh insights; so do tidbits about the life and death of Emperor Hirohito, his son and their hold on the increasingly comprehensible nation that emerges in these pages. Photos.

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821.521 WARDE ris WARDELL, Steven, 1971 - 821.521=20 Rising sons and daughters [life among Japan's new young] / Steven Wardell ; foreword by Haru Matsukata Reischauer. - 1st ed. - Cambridge, Mass. : Plympton Press International, 1995. - xxv, 291 p. ; 24 cm

ISBN 0963923099 (alk paper : pbk) Grade 7 Up-As part of a Youth for Understanding Program, Wardell lived with a Japanese family for a summer, attending a local high school. This book is his diary for that period, edited yet retaining a simple, chatty style. Although readers may feel that the young man should have done a bit more homework before he went to Japan, his perspectives are fresh and unprejudiced. Ostensibly dealing with today's youth, Wardell also makes many observations about Japan's older generations and draws apt comparisons with Americans and their customs. Both nations come in for both sensible praise and criticism, the contrast between the two countries' school customs being especially intriguing. YAs will find that the individual portraits as well as the overall presentation challenges American stereotypes of the Japanese. An eyeopener for general readers, this will also prove a welcome adjunct to social-studies classes. John Philbrook, San Francisco Public Library

AVERY the AVERY, Ellis 821.521=20 The teahouse fire / Ellis Avery. - London : Vintage, 2008. - 391 p. ; 20 cm Formerly CIP.$5Uk. ISBN 0099516187 Set in the late nineteenth century at a turning point in Japan's relationship with the western world, The Teahouse Fireis the story of Aurelia, a young French-American girl who, after the death of her mother, finds herself lost and alone in Japan and in need of a new family. Knowing only a few words of Japanese she hides in a tea house and is adopted by the family who own it: gradually falling in love with both the tea ceremony and with her young mistress, Yukako. As Aurelia grows up she devotes herself to the family and its failing fortunes in the face of civil war and western intervention, and to Yukako's love affairs and subsequent marriage. But her feelings for her mistress are never reciprocated and as tensions mount in the household Aurelia begins to realise that to the world around her she will never be anything but a foreigner. Like Memoirs of a Geisha, The Teahouse Fireis an utterly convincing recreation of a now lost world and a fascinating insight into the intricacies and intimacies of the tea ceremony.

895 AZIJSKE KNJIŽEVNOSTI 89 KIRIN van KIRINO, Natsuo 895.6 Van / Kirino Natsuo ; [preveo s japanskoga Stephen Snyder, preveo s engleskoga Damir Biličić]. - 1. izd. - Zagreb : Algoritam, 2013. - 423 str. ; 25 cm Prijevod djela: Out. ISBN 978-953-316-031-3

Ženi iz tokijskog predgrađa dojadilo je sukobljavati se s agresivnim mužem pa ga u iracionalnom napadu bijesa ubije. Svoj će zločin priznati kolegici s posla u noćnoj smjeni. Ta će pak kolegica angažirati još dvije suradnice iz iste tvornice, te će se njih četiri udružiti i pobrinuti se da tijelo nesretnog muža nestane s lica zemlje. No, čitatelji, budite na oprezu, ovaj roman nagrađen jednom od najprestižnijih japanskih nagrada za triler, te apsolutni bestseler u toj zemlji, nipošto ne uključuje šašavo žensko zbližavanje. Između četiri glavne junakinje, koje su imale vlastitih ozbiljnih problema i prije nego što su postale sudionice u ubojstvu, ubrzo se počinje formirati krhko prijateljstvo. Novac se prebacuje iz ruke u ruku. Dijelovi raskomadanog tijela iskrsnut će na neočekivanim mjestima. Policija počinje postavljati pitanja, a jedan vrlo loš tip kojeg nedužnog optuže za ubojstvo odlučan je u namjeri da pronađe prave krivce i kazni ih u skladu s počinjenim zločinom. Oronule četvrti, tvornice i skladišta Tokija izvrsna su scenografija za ovu prilično sumornu priču o ženama koje postaju žrtvama okolnosti, iako s namjerom da se održe pod svaku cijenu. Van je zapanjujuće izvrstan roman koji unatoč tematiziranju ženskog zbližavanja i prijateljstva nimalo ne odlazi u smjeru kojim su krenule neke Thelma i Louise. U ovom je djelu ponajprije riječ o mračnim utjecajima Gogolja i Dostojevskog.

(s korica knjige)

895 OZAKI poz OZAKI, Kohio 895.6 Pozlaćenje demona : roman / Ozaki Kohio. - Subotica : Minerva, 1984. - 318 str. ; 20 cm. - (Velike ljubavi) Prijevod djela: Kondziki jasja.

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895.6 ABE sec ABE, Kobo, 1924 - 895.6 Secret rendezvous / by Kobo Abe ; translated by Juliet W. Carpenter. - New York : Perigee Books, [1980] c1979. - 179 p. ; 20 cm. - Translation of Mikkai, $aReprint of the ed. published by Knopf, New York ISBN 0399505016 Surrealism exemplified some of the most famous works by Kobo Abe (1924-1993), earning him comparisons to Franz Kafka. Surrealism as a 20th-century literary and artistic movement attempted to express the workings of the subconscious.

His work Mikkai (Secret Rendezvous) is worth a read for its use of fantastic imagery and the incongruous juxtaposition of scientific data with bizarre nightmare-like scenarios. Secret Rendezvous is relevant in its description of the trappings of an increasingly technological society and its critique of a hospital system gone haywire. Each patient requires a secret agent to penetrate the bureaucratic system, and each person also appears to be under surveillance, mimicking the modern-day question, "Is Big Brother watching you?"

895.6 AKASA vib AKASAKA, Mari 895.6 Vibrator / by Mari Akasaka ; translated from the Japanese by Michael Emmerich. - Brooklyn, NY : Soft Skull Press : Distributed by Publishers Group West, 2007. - 155 p. ; 21 cm

ISBN 978-1-933368-61-0 Rei Hayakawa, a lonely, bulimic freelance writer with a drinking problem, wanders into a convenience store. She's swaddled in her coat and scarf, while her thoughts – of alienation, of hunger, of the need for gin and white wine – drift in via stream-of-consciousness. A trucker named Okabe walks in, deliberately grazes her behind, and at the same time, Rei's cell phone, set on vibrate, goes off over her heart. Rei impulsively gets into Okabe's truck with him – and stays. Suddenly she finds herself embarking on a road journey across the wintry landscape of Japan with a complete, and possibly dangerous, stranger. Can the physical relationship that develops between them give Rei what she needs, and can she ever free herself from her self-destructive tendencies? Both parties are wounded, guarded and distant — can they learn to trust each other? Author Mari Akasaka brings her trademark wordplay and vivid imagery to this compelling story of an unlikely pairing set against the bleak backdrop of Japan's highways. Adapted for the screen in 2003, Vibrator has also been made into a film.

895.6 AZUCH sup AZUCHI, Satoshi 895.6 Supermarket / Satoshi Azuchi ; translated by Paul Warham. - 1st U.S. ed. - New York : Thomas Dunne Books, 2009. - 329 p. ; 22 cm "Previously published in Japan as Shosetsu supamaketto by Kodansha Co. Ltd., Tokyo"--T.p. verso, $aTranslated from the Japanese ISBN 0312382944 A modern classic of literature in Japan, Supermarket is a novel of the human drama surrounding the management of a supermarket chain at a time when the phenomenon of the supermarket, imported postwar from the US, was just taking hold in Japan. When Kojima, an elite banker resigns his job to help a cousin manage Ishiei, a supermarket in one of Japan's provincial cities, a host of problems ensue. Store employees are stealing products, the books are in disaray, and the workers seem stuck in old ways of thinking. As Kojima begins to give all his time over to the relentless task of reforming the store's management, a chance encounter with a woman from his childhood causes him to ask the age-old question: is the all encompassing pursuit of business success really worth it? Sincere and naive in tone, Supermarket takes us back to a simpler, kinder time, and skillfully presents the depictions of its characters alongside a wealth of information concerning Japanese post WWII recovery and industrialization.

(Amazon.com)

895.6 KIRIN rea KIRINO, Natsuo 895.6 Real world / Natsuo Kirino ; translated by Philip Gabriel. - 1st American ed. - New York : Alfred A. Knopf, c2008. - 208 p. ; 22 cm "A Borzoi book.", $a"Originally published in Japan as Riaru waŻrudo"--CIP data sheet ISBN 9780307267573 A stunning new work of the feminist noir that Natsuo Kirino defined and made her own in her novels Out and Grotesque.

In a crowded residential suburb on the outskirts of Tokyo, four teenage girls indifferently wade their way through a hot, smoggy summer and endless "cram school" sessions meant to ensure entry into good colleges. There's Toshi, the dependable one; Terauchi, the great student; Yuzan, the sad one, grieving over the death of her mother-and trying to hide her sexual orientation from her friends; and Kirarin, the sweet one, whose late nights and reckless behavior remain a secret from those around her. When Toshi's next-door neighbor is found brutally murdered, the girls suspect the killer is the neighbor's son, a high school boy they nickname Worm. But when he flees, taking Toshi's bike and cell phone with him, the four girls get caught up in a tempest

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of dangers-dangers they never could have even imagined—that rises from within them as well as from the world around them.

Psychologically intricate and astute, dark and unflinching, Real World is a searing, eye-opening portrait of teenage life in Japan unlike any we have seen before.

895.6 LOUIS but LOUIS, Lisa 895.6 Butterflies of the night [mama-sans, geisha, strippers, and the Japanese men they serve] / Lisa Louis. - 1st ed. - New York : Tengu Books, 1992. - 214 p. ; 25 cm

ISBN 083480249X This book takes the reader on a tour behind the scenes of Japan's famous and infamous mizu shobai, the nightlife industry that caters to the sensual needs and appetites of Japanese men. From cabarets and hostess bars to pink salons and soaplands to the most refined geisha entertainment, the author exposes to Western eyes a complete and unadorned portrait of Japanese nighlife, including its patrons and those who serve them, its Yakuza connections, and its crucial role in Japanese life and business.

(Amazon.com)

895.6 MISHI spr MISHIMA, Yukio 895.6 Spring snow / Yukio Mishima ; translated from the Japanese by Michael Gallagher. - 1st Vintage international ed. - New York : Vintage International, 1990. - 389 p. ; 21 cm. - (The sea of fertility ; ) Translation of: Haru no yuki ISBN 0679722416

895.6 MIYAB cro MIYABE, Miyuki 895.6 Crossfire / Miyuki Miyabe ; translated by Deborah Stuhr Iwabuchi and Anna Husson Isozaki. - 1st ed. - Tokyo ; New York : Kodansha International, 2005. - 404 p. ; 23 cm. -

ISBN 4770029934 (hbk) This provocative paranormal police procedural from the prolific Miyabe, like her two previous crime novels translated into English (All She Was Worth and Shadow Family), examines the dark side of Japanese society. The complex story is seen through the eyes of two very different women: Junko Aoki, who's afflicted/blessed with pyrokinesis, the ability to start fires through willpower, which she uses to avenge unsolved crimes, and Sgt. Chikako Ishizu of the Tokyo police department's arson squad, a pragmatic skeptic. Chikako and her partner gradually piece together a series of baffling cases in which suspected criminals, cars and even buildings are inexplicably incinerated. Their investigation leads to those with supernatural powers, including a troubled young girl, as well as to an underground citizens' organization of justice seekers. Despite uneven pacing and some unlikely coincidences, this startling genre mix keeps the reader turning the pages right up to the breathtaking climax.

895.6 MIYAM aut MIYAMOTO, Teru 895.6 Autumn brocade = Kinshu / Teru Miyamoto ; translated from the Japanese by Roger K. Thomas. - New York, N.Y. : New Directions Book, c2005. - 196 p. ; 19 cm. -

ISBN 9780811216333 The word kinshu has many connotations in Japanese—brocade, poetic writing, the brilliance of autumn leaves—and resonates here as a vibrant metaphor for the complex, intimate relationship between Aki and Yasuaki. Ten years after a dramatic divorce, they meet by chance at a mountain resort. Aki initiates a new correspondence, and letter by letter through the seasons, the secrets of their past unfold as they reflect on their present struggles. From a lover's suicide, to a father's controlling demands, to Mozart's Thirty-ninth Symphony ("a veritable marvel of sixteenth notes"), to the karmic consequences of their actions, the story glides through their deeply introspective and stirring exchanges. What begins as a series of accusations and apologies, questions and excuses, turns into a source of mutual support and healing.

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895.6 SHIMO fou SHIMODA, Todd 895.6 The fourth treasure : [a novel] / Todd Shimoda ; art & calligraphy by L.J.C. Shimoda. - 1st ed. - New York : : Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, , 2002. - 349 p. : : ill. ; ; 21 cm. -

ISBN 0385503520 A teacher of Japanese shodo (calligraphy) emerges from a stroke with both agraphia and aphasia, severely limiting his ability to communicate and rendering his kanji characters indecipherable. Meanwhile, across San Francisco, his former mistress, Hanako, waitresses at a Japanese restaurant and struggles to hide her MS from her daughter, Tina, a grad student in neuroscience and the love child of her affair with the calligrapher. Calligraphy serves as a meta-metaphor throughout this book, which, much like a calligraphic kanji symbol, is deliberately composed stroke by stroke. Skipping back and forth in time, from 17th-century Japan to modern northern California, Shimoda (365 Views of Mt. Fuji) traces the history of the potent Daizen Inkstone, from its discovery in a mountain stream to its hiding place in present-day Berkeley. Like a poem composed in kanji symbols, the story's overall meaning only emerges from the interplay between its characters, who are themselves invested with symbolic, conflicting qualities. They include the rebellious shodo sensei Zenzen and his traditionally minded student Gozen; Hanako and her thoroughly American daughter, Tina; two neuroscience professors, one a theorist, the other a pragmatist; and Tina's boyfriends, one a charismatic, charitable Latino doctor and the other a humorless Caucasian. When Tina takes the stroke-afflicted Zenzen as a subject for her studies, she is, quite literally, attempting to resolve the ancient mind-body conflict. Illustrations of the sensei's poststroke calligraphy and its Zen koan-like interpretations punctuate important points in the narrative. Reading this novel, which encompasses so many mysterious contrasts, is like an exercise in contemplating a beautiful piece of calligraphy; Shimoda has penned a skillful meditation on both art and life.

(Amazon.com)

895.6 SUENA the SUENAGA,Naomi 895.6 The hundred-yen singer / Naomi Suenaga ; translated by Tom Gill. - London ; Chester Springs, PA : Peter Owen Publishers. ; Chester Springs, PA : Distributed in the USA by Dufour Editions, 2006. - 215 p. ; 22 cm "Originally published in Japan by Kawada Shobo Shinsha, Tokyo."--T.p. verso ISBN 0720612748

The Japanese entertainment world described in Naomi Suenaga's novel is about as far removed from Memoirs of a Geisha as could be imagined. Rinka Kazuki is condemned to scraping a living performing traditional Japanese ballads (enka) in bathhouses and other sleazy venues, scrabbling for hundred-yen tips to make ends meet. Her professional life is built on illusion but the crushing realities of every day life; unscrupulous agents, jealous rivals, an unsupportive married lover and lascivous would be patrons, often threaten to sink her. Suenaga's own experiences of the business lend snap and crackle to this tale of feisty perseverence and she conjures some deftly drawn and amusing characters from this twilit world, intoxicated by the promise of stardom.

(Amazon.com)

895.6 TAKAG tra TAKAGI, Nobuko 895.6 Translucent tree / Nabuko Takagi ; translated by Deborah Iwabuchi. - 1st ed. - New York : Vertical, 2008. - 188 p. ; 20 cm. -

ISBN 9781934287149 Chigiri Yamazaki is a divorced single mother who has returned to Tsurugi City with her 11 year old daughter to care for her ailing father-a famouse sword maker whose business has completely faltered. It falls upon Chigiri to keep dept collectors at bay.

Go Imai, a freelance documentary maker, is on a business trip from Tokyo and has decided to stop by this little town of Tsurugi, where he had come to do a story on Chigiri's father 25 years ago. Go reunites with Chigiri, and the two begin a love story of epic consequence and passion reminiscent of the works of Marguerite Duras and Alice Munro, set against the backdrop of bucolic Japan.

(Amazon.com)

895.6 TOKUN mid TOKUNAGA, Wendy 895.6 Midori by moonlight / Wendy Nelson Tokunaga. - 1st ed. - New York : St. Martin's Griffin, 2007. - viii, 246 p. ; 21 cm

ISBN 0312372612 Midori Saito's dream seems about to come true. Too independent for Japanese society, Midori is a young woman who has always felt like a stranger in her native land. So when she falls in love with Kevin, an American English teacher, she readily agrees to leave home and start a new life with him in San Francisco--as his fiancée. Kevin seems to be the perfect man.

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That is, until he dumps her for his blonde ex-fiancée, whom Midori never even knew existed. Midori is left on her own, with just a smattering of fractured English, not much cash, and a fiancée visa set to expire in sixty days. Unable to face the humiliation of telling her parents she's been jilted, and not wanting to give up on her "American Dream," Midori realizes she's in for quite a challenge. Her only hope is her new acquaintance (and potential landlord) Shinji, a successful San Francisco graphic artist and amateur moon gazer who fled Japan after a family tragedy. And eventually, Midori surprises even herself as she proves she will do almost anything to hang on to her dream of a new life.

(Amazon.com)

895.6 YAMAM bet YAMAMOTO, Michiko 895.6 Betty-san [stories] / by Michiko Yamamoto ; translated by Geraldine Harcourt. - 1st ed. - Tokyo : Kodansha International ; New York, N.Y. : Kodansha International/U.S.A. ; New York, N.Y. : Distributed in the U.S. by Kodansha International/U.S.A., through Harper & Row, 1983. - 152 p. : ill. ; 22 cm. -

ISBN 0-87011-736-X These stories are mostly about female characters who feel foreign, isolated, and alienated. This book felt oddly familiar, but I can't place when I would have read it. Favorite lines: 1. "Nature always seemed to enfold human lives so snugly. With the result, at times, that one overran the other. Nature might suddenly engulf human life; people might trample nature underfoot" (62). 2. "How odd insubstantial words had turned out to be. The remarks exchanged regularly over tea or cocktails weren't words, she concluded, but a succession of polite noises"

(goodreads.com)

895.6 YOSHI goo YOSHIMOTO, Banana 895.6 Goodbye Tsugumi / Banana Yoshimoto ; translated from the Japanese by Michael Emmerich. - London : Faber (d2002). -

ISBN 0-571-21284-0 Maria is the only daughter of an unmarried woman. She has grown up at the seaside alongside her cousin Tsugumi, a lifelong invalid, charismatic, spoiled and occasionally cruel. Now Maria's father is finally able to bring Maria and her mother to Tokyo, ushering Maria into a world of university, impending adulthood, and a 'normal' family. When Tsugumi invites Maria to spend a last summer by the sea, a restful idyll becomes a time of dramatic growth as Tsugumi finds love, and Maria learns the true meaning of home and family. She also has to confront both Tsugumi's inner strength and the real possibility of losing her.

895.6 YOSHI har YOSHIMOTO, Banana 895.6 Hardboiled [& Hard luck] / Banana Yoshimoto ; translated from the Japanese by Michael Emmerich. - London : Faber and Faber, 2005. - 149 p. ; 22 cm Formerly CIP.$5Uk. ISBN 0571227821 (pbk)

Like twins whose paths diverge dramatically, these two gentle stories share little beyond the mesmerizing voice of their creator. The surreal subject matter and dreamy narration of "Hardboiled" make it read rather like a bedtime story gone awry. When the young female narrator realizes that it's the anniversary of her lover's death, several curious events suddenly make sense: a stone from a creepy shrine that finds its way into her pocket; a fire at an udon shop where she'd just been eating; and a nighttime visitation by the ghost of a woman who committed suicide. "Harboiled" drags a bit, but "Hard Luck" is a pleasure, even if it's almost as downbeat as its predecessor. This time, a young female narrator is standing watch over her older sister, Kuni, whose brain is slowly dying after a cerebral hemorrhage. As their parents gradually lose hope for Kuni's recovery, the narrator makes her own peace by forging a bond with her sister's fiancé's brother. In this gemlike story, Yoshimoto (Goodbye Tsugumi) takes a subtle, graceful look at the relationship between the sisters and the fault lines in this grieving family, elevating her little book from fine to downright moving.

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895 TSUSH the TSUSHIMA, Yuko 895.6/25 The shooting gallery and other stories / Yuko Tsushima ; translated and compiled by Geraldine Harcourt. - second printing New York : New Direction Publishing, 1996. - 138 p. ; 21 cm. - (Pantheon modern writers)

ISBN 0-8112-1356-0 With graceful, sensitive prose, Yuko Tsushima tells eight slice-of-life stories of lonely, burdened contemporary Japanese women who seek "a sense of well-being that captured . . . what the word happiness meant." In "South Wind," Akiko takes a lover; her husband and daughter leave her. She bears the lover's child and raises him on her own, with occasional visits from the father. The title story features another single mother, "hemmed in by the cracker crumbs, plastic blocks, empty juice cans, underwear and socks that littered the room," who takes her two children to see a beautiful beach but instead finds a seashore strewn with rubbish. In "The Chrysanthemum Beetle," Izumi suspects that her boyfriend has another lover; she finally confronts him and walks out. Then the other woman calls and asks to meet her. Tsushima (Child of Fortune) conveys the passion and pain of her characters through her vivid accounting of the details of everyday life.

(amazon.com)

895.6 MIURA sha MIURA, Tetsuo, 895.6=20 Shame in the blood [a novel] / by Tetsuo Miura ; translated by Andrew Driver. - [Emeryville, CA] : Shoemaker & Hoard, 2007. - 216 p. ; 19 cm. -

ISBN 1593761716 Shame in the Blood (Shinobugawa) is considered one of the finest contemporary love stories in all of modern Japanese literature. The narrator, a young college student, has had two brothers disappear, lost two sisters to suicide, and his third sister is physically disabled. He is determined not only to survive but to thrive in spite of tormented thoughts that his family's blood is cursed. Told as six interlocked and layered stories, the novel builds and deepens as the particulars of everyday life provide a moving, beautiful testimony to the love and power of youth and commitment. The whole story is tinged with melancholic sadness often associated with Japanese literature, where the feeling of love itself is "a little death." First published in Japan, Shame in the Blood was made into a film directed by Obayashi Nobuhiko, and won the Akutagawa Prize for Literature, launching Tetsuo Miura's career. Working in the great tradition of Japanese novelists from Soseki to Kawabata, from Mishima to Abe, Miura takes his place as one of the greatest living Japanese writers.

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