Japan and Korea
A selection of books on Japan, North Korea and South Korea
Shogun
James clavell
This is James Clavell's tour-de-force. the epic saga of Pilot-Major John Blackthorne, who is shipwrecked on Japan, the most alien of shores. The novel charts Blackthorne's rise from the status of reviled foreigner up to the height oft rusted advisor and, eventually, samuriai. All as civil war looms over the fragile country.
Hodder 1975
ISBN 9780340766163
£8.99
Foreign Studies
Shusaku Endo
In the early 1950s, the acclaimed writer Shusaku Endo spend several years studying as an exchange student in Paris. Around him existentialism, Sartre and Beckett were making the city the literary and philosophical capital of the world. But for Endo the experience was deeply alienating and he came away infected with tuberculosis, his studies incomplete and convinced that there could be no cultural exchange between East and West. Foreign Studies consists of three linked studies exploring this theme.
Peter Owen
ISBN 9780720612264
Pbk £9.99
Japan: Through Writers' Eyes
Elizabeth Ingrams (ed.)
Like a traveller in search of enlightenment, Elizabeth Ingrams has tracked down a wealth of writers who have turned their attention to these enigmatic islands. From the earliest European reports of Japan's sophisticated court culture, to eyewitness accounts of the explosion of the atom bomb at Nagasaki and of of street life in present-day Ginza, she builds a complex picture of the islands and their people, their refined culture and religious beliefs as well as their changing lifestyles.
Eland 2009
ISBN 9781906011086
Pbk £12.99
Kafka on the Shore
Haruki Murakami
Murakami's new novel follows the fortunes 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 accident, finds his pleasantly simplified life suddenly turned upside-down. Their parallel odysseys are enriched throughout by vivid accomplices and mesmerising dramas.
Vintage 2005
ISBN 0099458322
Pbk £7.99
Blind Willow Sleeping Woman
Haruki Murakami
Murakami's new collection of short stories is an eclectic mix, incorporating animated crows, a criminal monkey and and ice man. He explores the variety of human experience, the surreal and the mundane. Includes an introduction by the author.
Vintage 2007
ISBN 9780099488668
Pbk £7.99
After Dark
Haruki Murakami
The midnight hour approaches in an almost empty all-night diner. Mari sips her coffee and glances up from a book as a young man, a musician, intrudes on her solitude. Both have missed the last train home. Later, Mari is interrupted again by a girl from the Alphaville hotel; a Chinese prostitute has been hurt by a client, and she needs Mari's help. Meanwhile, Mari's beautiful sister Eri sleeps a deep heavy sleep that is 'too perfect' to be normal; she has lain asleep for two months. But tonight as the digital clock displays 00:00, a hint of life flickers across the TV screen, though the television's plug has been pulled out.
Another surreal novel from the famed Japanese author.
Vintage 2008
ISBN 9780099506249
Pbk £7.99
