I am reading Kawabata now, and have like everyone else read a lot of Murakami but I am a bit clueless of other more modern authors.
I did read some from Banana Yoshimoto and liked her a lot.
Anyone that have other names for me to try out?
Kenzaburo Oe, Yukio Mishima(Kawabata's protege), Kobo Abe( surrealistic prose), dazai Osamu ( reading him soon), ....and so many others... You can start with any one of them... although Mishima is closer to Kawabata in his themes of beauty and sadness .... I hope this post helps you Jema... I'll put up a list soon...
If you're really looking for some of the more modern ones, I can recommend Hiromi Kawakami and Yoko Ogawa. And if you like thrillers: Natsuo Kirino.
Others that I have had on my list for a while but haven't read yet: Ryu Murakami, Hitomi Kanehara, Ito Ogawa and Miyuki Miyabe.
Does manga count? Because I can definitely recommend Ninomiya Tomoko (Nodame Cantabile, musical slie of life) and Yagi Norihiro (Claymore, monster-fighting). I read Ryu Murakami's "Almost Transparen Blue", which is like the Japanese equivalent to "A Clockwork Orange", Haruki Murakami (of course), Mishima's "The Golden Temple" (and understood zilch) and Banana Yoshimoto (whom I
oh no, last line is missing, I want to know what you thought about Banana Yoshimoto. I read Kitchen years ago and just recently 'The lake' and really loved that one.
I have yet to try any manga but will see if I can find any around here.
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I *heart* Banana Yoshimoto (It seems like the icon is making the rest of the comment disappear, fancy that.)
I'm also curious about Kobo Abe. Anyone know his books? I've got a project on surrealism lined up and I wanna know where to start.
"The Woman in the Dunes" - Kobo Abe , would be a fine start, Ninja.
I suggest The Box Man, my favorite Kobo Abe novel. It's just so splendidly hard to describe.
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I love Banana Yoshimoto's The Lake (read it three times already) and Kitchen. I also read Hardboiled and Hardluck this year but I did not like it that much.
I've read Kenzaburo Oe's "A Personal Matter", "Real World" by Natsuo Kirino (didn't like it) and I'm going to try reading Yoko Ogawa's "The Diving Pool" soon. Oh, even if I didn't like "Real World", I'm still going to try "Out" by the same author :)
Hi everyone! Glad to be with the group and hope I can contribute in some way. I'm relatively new to Japanese literature but do love the subtle, serene quality of it. Of course, I've only read Banana Yoshimo's Kitchen, Haruki Murakami (all but 2), Yasunari Kawabata's Thousand Cranes, and several by Kazuo Ishiguro. I'm always on the lookout for other authors and books so we do seem to have that in common.
A little unbelievable that no one has mentioned this but... Akutagawa Ryunosuke and Soseki Natsume, the father of Japanese literature.
Though if you want someone more contemporary, I think everyone has pretty much combed through the rather short list of extremely popular translated Japanese authors.
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