Modern Japanese Literature

A collection of plays, essays, poetry, and reportage compiled by “the 20th-century’s premier scholar of Japanese literature” (Slate).  Modern Japanese Literature is Donald Keene’s critically acclaimed companion volume to his landmark Anthology of Japanese Literature. Now considered the standard canon of modern Japanese writing translated into English, Modern Japanese Literature includes concise introductions to the writers, as well as a historical introduction by Professor Keene. Includes: “Growing Up” by Higuchi Ichiyo, a lyrical story of pre-adolescence in the nineties; Natsume Soseki’s story of “Botchan,” an ill-starred and ineffectual Huck Finn; Nagai Kafu’s “The River Sumida;” Yokomitsu Riitchi’s Kafkaesque “Time;” Kawabata Yasunari’s “The Mole;” “The Firefly Hunt;” a glimpse into Tanizaki Junichiro’s masterpiece “Thin Snow;” and the postwar work of such writers as Dazai Osamu and Mishima Yukio.