|
Showing 1 - 25 of
25 matches in All Departments
|
The Ark Sakura
K ob o Abe; Translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter
|
R311
R253
Discovery Miles 2 530
Save R58 (19%)
|
Ships in 9 - 15 working days
|
From Shion Miura, the award-winning author of The Great Passage,
comes a rapturous novel where the contemporary and the traditional
meet amid the splendor of Japan's mountain way of life. Yuki Hirano
is just out of high school when his parents enroll him, against his
will, in a forestry training program in the remote mountain village
of Kamusari. No phone, no internet, no shopping. Just a small,
inviting community where the most common expression is "take it
easy." At first, Yuki is exhausted, fumbles with the tools, asks
silly questions, and feels like an outcast. Kamusari is the last
place a city boy from Yokohama wants to spend a year of his life.
But as resistant as he might be, the scent of the cedars and the
staggering beauty of the region have a pull. Yuki learns to fell
trees and plant saplings. He begins to embrace local festivals,
he's mesmerized by legends of the mountain, and he might be falling
in love. In learning to respect the forest on Mt. Kamusari for its
majestic qualities and its inexplicable secrets, Yuki starts to
appreciate Kamusari's harmony with nature and its ancient
traditions. In this warm and lively coming-of-age story, Miura
transports us from the trappings of city life to the trials,
mysteries, and delights of a mythical mountain forest.
Clouds above the Hill is one of the best-selling novels ever in
Japan, and is now translated into English for the first time. An
epic portrait of Japan in crisis, it combines graphic military
history and highly readable fiction to depict an aspiring nation
modernizing at breakneck speed. Best-selling author Shiba Ryotaro
devoted an entire decade of his life to this extraordinary
blockbuster, which features Japan's emerging onto the world stage
by the early years of the twentieth century. Volume I describes the
growth of Japan's fledgling Meiji state, a major "character" in the
novel. We are also introduced to our three heroes, born into
obscurity, the brothers Akiyama Yoshifuru and Akiyama Saneyuki, who
will go on to play important roles in the Japanese Army and Navy,
and the poet Masaoka Shiki, who will spend much of his short life
trying to establish the haiku as a respected poetic form. Anyone
curious as to how the "tiny, rising nation of Japan" was able to
fight so fiercely for its survival should look no further. Clouds
above the Hill is an exciting, human portrait of a modernizing
nation that goes to war and thereby stakes its very existence on a
desperate bid for glory in East Asia.
Bestselling author Keiichiro Hirano offers a timeless ode to love's
fragility and its resilience in this delicate, award-winning novel.
Classical guitarist Satoshi Makino has toured the world and is at
the height of his career when he first lays eyes on journalist Yoko
Komine. Their bond forms instantly. Upon their first meeting, after
Makino's concert in Tokyo, they begin a conversation that will go
on for years, with long spells of silence broken by powerful
moments of connection. She's drawn by Makino's tender music and his
sensitivity, and he is intrigued by Yoko's refinement and
intellect. But neither knows enough about love to see it blooming
nor has the confidence to make the first move. Will their
connection endure, weaving them back together like instruments in a
symphony, or will fate lead them apart? Blending the harmonies of
Kazuo Ishiguro's Nocturnes and the sensuality of Ian McEwan's
Enduring Love, At the End of the Matinee is an enchanting and
thought-provoking love story.
|
A Woman of Pleasure - A Novel
Kiyoko Murata; Translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter
|
R502
R388
Discovery Miles 3 880
Save R114 (23%)
|
Ships in 10 - 15 working days
|
Clouds above the Hill, a long-time best-selling novel in Japan, is
now translated into English for the first time. An epic portrait of
Japan in crisis, it combines graphic military history and highly
readable fiction to depict an aspiring nation modernizing at
breakneck speed. Acclaimed author Shiba Ryotaro devoted an entire
decade of his life to this extraordinary blockbuster, which
features Japan's emergence onto the world stage by the early years
of the 20th century. Volume three finds Admiral Togo continuing his
blockade of Port Arthur. Meanwhile, a Japanese land offensive gains
control of the high ground overlooking the bay as the Russians at
last call for a ceasefire. However, on the banks of the Shaho
River, the Japanese lines are stretched, but the Russian General
Kuropatkin makes a decision to flank the troops to the left and in
doing so encounters Akiyama Yoshifuru's cavalry. Anyone curious as
to how the "tiny, rising nation of Japan" was able to fight so
fiercely for its survival should look no further. Clouds above the
Hill is an exciting, human portrait of a modernizing nation that
goes to war and thereby stakes its very existence on a desperate
bid for glory in East Asia.
Clouds above the Hill, a long-time best-selling novel in Japan, is
now translated into English for the first time. An epic portrait of
Japan in crisis, it combines graphic military history and highly
readable fiction to depict an aspiring nation modernizing at
breakneck speed. Acclaimed author Shiba Ryotaro devoted an entire
decade of his life to this extraordinary blockbuster, which
features Japan's emergence onto the world stage by the early years
of the 20th century. Volume three finds Admiral Togo continuing his
blockade of Port Arthur. Meanwhile, a Japanese land offensive gains
control of the high ground overlooking the bay as the Russians at
last call for a ceasefire. However, on the banks of the Shaho
River, the Japanese lines are stretched, but the Russian General
Kuropatkin makes a decision to flank the troops to the left and in
doing so encounters Akiyama Yoshifuru's cavalry. Anyone curious as
to how the "tiny, rising nation of Japan" was able to fight so
fiercely for its survival should look no further. Clouds above the
Hill is an exciting, human portrait of a modernizing nation that
goes to war and thereby stakes its very existence on a desperate
bid for glory in East Asia.
Clouds above the Hill is one of the best-selling novels ever in
Japan, and is now translated into English for the first time. An
epic portrait of Japan in crisis, it combines graphic military
history and highly readable fiction to depict an aspiring nation
modernizing at breakneck speed. Best-selling author Shiba Ryotaro
devoted an entire decade of his life to this extraordinary
blockbuster, which features Japan's emerging onto the world stage
by the early years of the twentieth century. Volume I describes the
growth of Japan's fledgling Meiji state, a major "character" in the
novel. We are also introduced to our three heroes, born into
obscurity, the brothers Akiyama Yoshifuru and Akiyama Saneyuki, who
will go on to play important roles in the Japanese Army and Navy,
and the poet Masaoka Shiki, who will spend much of his short life
trying to establish the haiku as a respected poetic form. Anyone
curious as to how the "tiny, rising nation of Japan" was able to
fight so fiercely for its survival should look no further. Clouds
above the Hill is an exciting, human portrait of a modernizing
nation that goes to war and thereby stakes its very existence on a
desperate bid for glory in East Asia.
|
An I-Novel (Paperback)
Minae Mizumura; Translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter
|
R459
Discovery Miles 4 590
|
Ships in 12 - 17 working days
|
Minae Mizumura’s An I-Novel is a semi-autobiographical work that
takes place over the course of a single day in the 1980s. Minae is
a Japanese expatriate graduate student who has lived in the United
States for two decades but turned her back on the English language
and American culture. After a phone call from her older sister
reminds her that it is the twentieth anniversary of their
family’s arrival in New York, she spends the day reflecting in
solitude and over the phone with her sister about their life in the
United States, trying to break the news that she has decided to go
back to Japan and become a writer in her mother tongue. Published
in 1995, this formally daring novel radically broke with Japanese
literary tradition. It liberally incorporated English words and
phrases, and the entire text was printed horizontally, to be read
from left to right, rather than vertically and from right to left.
In a luminous meditation on how a person becomes a writer, Mizumura
transforms the “I-novel,” a Japanese confessional genre that
toys with fictionalization. An I-Novel tells the story of two
sisters while taking up urgent questions of identity, race, and
language. Above all, it considers what it means to write in the era
of the hegemony of English—and what it means to be a writer of
Japanese in particular. Juliet Winters Carpenter masterfully
renders a novel that once appeared untranslatable into English.
|
The Great Passage (Paperback)
Shion Miura; Translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter
|
R283
R213
Discovery Miles 2 130
Save R70 (25%)
|
Ships in 9 - 15 working days
|
An award-winning story of love, friendship, and the power of human
connection. Kohei Araki believes that a dictionary is a boat to
carry us across the sea of words. But after thirty-seven years of
creating dictionaries, it's time for him to retire and find his
replacement. He discovers a kindred spirit in Mitsuya Majime-a
young, disheveled square peg with a penchant for collecting
antiquarian books and a background in linguistics-whom he swipes
from his company's sales department. Along with an energetic, if
reluctant, new recruit and an elder linguistics scholar, Majime is
tasked with a career-defining accomplishment: completing The Great
Passage, a comprehensive 2,900-page tome of the Japanese language.
On his journey, Majime discovers friendship, romance, and an
incredible dedication to his work, inspired by the words that
connect us all.
Clouds above the Hill is one of the best-selling novels ever in
Japan, and is now translated into English for the first time. An
epic portrait of Japan in crisis, it combines graphic military
history and highly readable fiction to depict an aspiring nation
modernizing at breakneck speed. Best-selling author Shiba Ryotaro
devoted an entire decade of his life to this extraordinary
blockbuster, which features Japan's emerging onto the world stage
by the early years of the twentieth century. In Volume II, Meiji
Japan is on a collision course with Russia, as Russian troops
stationed in Manchuria ignore repeated calls to withdraw. Admiral
Togo leads a blockade and subsequent skirmish at the strategically
vital and heavily fortified Port Arthur, whilst Yoshifuru's cavalry
in Manchuria maneuvers for position as it approaches the Russian
Army lines. The two armies clash at the battle of Liaoyang, where
Japan seals a victory which shocks the world. Anyone curious as to
how the "tiny, rising nation of Japan" was able to fight so
fiercely for its survival should look no further. Clouds above the
Hill is an exciting, human portrait of a modernizing nation that
goes to war and thereby stakes its very existence on a desperate
bid for glory in East Asia.
Clouds above the Hill is one of the best-selling novels ever in
Japan, and is now translated into English for the first time. An
epic portrait of Japan in crisis, it combines graphic military
history and highly readable fiction to depict an aspiring nation
modernizing at breakneck speed. Best-selling author Shiba Ryotaro
devoted an entire decade of his life to this extraordinary
blockbuster, which features Japan's emerging onto the world stage
by the early years of the twentieth century. In Volume II, Meiji
Japan is on a collision course with Russia, as Russian troops
stationed in Manchuria ignore repeated calls to withdraw. Admiral
Togo leads a blockade and subsequent skirmish at the strategically
vital and heavily fortified Port Arthur, whilst Yoshifuru's cavalry
in Manchuria maneuvers for position as it approaches the Russian
Army lines. The two armies clash at the battle of Liaoyang, where
Japan seals a victory which shocks the world. Anyone curious as to
how the "tiny, rising nation of Japan" was able to fight so
fiercely for its survival should look no further. Clouds above the
Hill is an exciting, human portrait of a modernizing nation that
goes to war and thereby stakes its very existence on a desperate
bid for glory in East Asia.
Winner of the Kobayashi Hideo Award, this best-selling book by
one of Japan's most ambitious contemporary fiction writers lays
bare the struggle to retain the brilliance of one's own language in
an age of English dominance. Born in Tokyo but also raised and
educated in the United States, Minae Mizumura acknowledges the
value of a universal language in the pursuit of knowledge, yet also
appreciates the different ways of seeing offered by the work of
multiple tongues. She warns against losing this precious
diversity.
Universal languages have always played a pivotal role in
advancing human societies, Mizumura shows, but in the globalized
world of the Internet, English is fast becoming the sole common
language of the human race. The process is unstoppable, and
striving for total language equality is delusional -- except when a
particular knowledge is at stake, gained through writings in a
specific language. Mizumura calls these writings "texts" and their
ultimate form "literature." Only through literature, and more
fundamentally through the various languages that give birth to a
variety of literatures, can we nurture and enrich humanity.
Incorporating her own experiences as a writer and a lover of
language, and embedding a parallel history of Japanese, Mizumura
offers an intimate look at the phenomenona of individual and
national expression.
|
Salad Anniversary (Paperback)
Machi Tawara; Translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter
|
R305
R247
Discovery Miles 2 470
Save R58 (19%)
|
Ships in 9 - 15 working days
|
"These poems are alive, fizzing with vitality" Japan Times
This internationally bestselling book took the world by storm on its publication. Covering the discovery of new love, first heartache and the end of an affair, these poems mix the ancient grace and musicality of the tanka form with a modern insight and wit.
With a light, fresh touch and a cool eye, Machi Tawara celebrates the small events in a life fully lived, one that is wonderfully touched by humour and beauty. This book will stay with you through the day, and long after you have finished it.
Translated from the Japanese by Juliet Winters Carpenter.
Winner of the Kobayashi Hideo Award, The Fall of Language in the
Age of English lays bare the struggle to retain the brilliance of
one's own language in this period of English-language dominance.
Born in Tokyo but raised and educated in the United States, Minae
Mizumura acknowledges the value of a universal language in the
pursuit of knowledge yet also embraces the different ways of
understanding offered by multiple tongues. She warns against losing
this precious diversity. Universal languages have always played a
pivotal role in advancing human societies, Mizumura shows, but in
the globalized world of the Internet, English is fast becoming the
sole common language of humanity. The process is unstoppable, and
striving for total language equality is delusional-and yet,
particular kinds of knowledge can be gained only through writings
in specific languages. Mizumura calls these writings "texts" and
their ultimate form "literature." Only through literature and, more
fundamentally, through the diverse languages that give birth to a
variety of literatures, can we nurture and enrich humanity.
Incorporating her own experiences as a writer and a lover of
language and embedding a parallel history of Japanese, Mizumura
offers an intimate look at the phenomena of individual and national
expression.
|
An I-Novel (Hardcover)
Minae Mizumura; Translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter
|
R1,636
Discovery Miles 16 360
|
Ships in 12 - 17 working days
|
Minae Mizumura’s An I-Novel is a semi-autobiographical work that
takes place over the course of a single day in the 1980s. Minae is
a Japanese expatriate graduate student who has lived in the United
States for two decades but turned her back on the English language
and American culture. After a phone call from her older sister
reminds her that it is the twentieth anniversary of their
family’s arrival in New York, she spends the day reflecting in
solitude and over the phone with her sister about their life in the
United States, trying to break the news that she has decided to go
back to Japan and become a writer in her mother tongue. Published
in 1995, this formally daring novel radically broke with Japanese
literary tradition. It liberally incorporated English words and
phrases, and the entire text was printed horizontally, to be read
from left to right, rather than vertically and from right to left.
In a luminous meditation on how a person becomes a writer, Mizumura
transforms the “I-novel,” a Japanese confessional genre that
toys with fictionalization. An I-Novel tells the story of two
sisters while taking up urgent questions of identity, race, and
language. Above all, it considers what it means to write in the era
of the hegemony of English—and what it means to be a writer of
Japanese in particular. Juliet Winters Carpenter masterfully
renders a novel that once appeared untranslatable into English.
|
The Ark Sakura (Paperback)
K ob o Abe; Translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter
1
|
R282
R230
Discovery Miles 2 300
Save R52 (18%)
|
Ships in 9 - 15 working days
|
'One of Japan's most venerated writers' David Mitchell In this
unnerving fable from one of Japan's greatest novelists, a recluse
known as 'Mole' retreats to a vast underground bunker, only to find
that strange guests, booby traps and a giant toilet may prove even
greater obstacles than nuclear disaster. 'As is true of Poe and
Kafka, Abe creates an unexpected impulsion. One continues reading,
on and on' New Yorker 'Abe's depiction of the deadly game of
survival is hilarious but at the same time leaves us with a
chilling sense of apprehension about the brave new world that
awaits us' Los Angeles Times
|
Secret Rendezvous (Paperback)
K ob o Abe; Translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter
|
R305
R247
Discovery Miles 2 470
Save R58 (19%)
|
Ships in 9 - 15 working days
|
'A gorgeously entertaining, provocative book' Chicago Tribune It is
4am when the ambulance comes to take the man's wife away - although
no-one has called it, and there is nothing wrong with her. As he
sets out to find her, he finds himself in the corridors of a vast
underground hospital, where he encounters sinister medics, freakish
sexual experiments and the unmistakable feeling of being watched.
Even when he is suddenly appointed as the hospital's chief of
security, reporting to a man who thinks he is a horse, he will not
give up his search. Secret Rendezvous is a nightmarish satire of
bureaucracy, medicine and modern life. 'Reads as if it were the
collaborative effort of Hieronymus Bosch, Franz Kafka and Mel
Brooks' Chicago Sun Times
From Shion Miura, the award-winning author of The Great Passage,
comes a rapturous novel where the contemporary and the traditional
meet amid the splendor of Japan's mountain way of life. Yuki Hirano
is just out of high school when his parents enroll him, against his
will, in a forestry training program in the remote mountain village
of Kamusari. No phone, no internet, no shopping. Just a small,
inviting community where the most common expression is "take it
easy." At first, Yuki is exhausted, fumbles with the tools, asks
silly questions, and feels like an outcast. Kamusari is the last
place a city boy from Yokohama wants to spend a year of his life.
But as resistant as he might be, the scent of the cedars and the
staggering beauty of the region have a pull. Yuki learns to fell
trees and plant saplings. He begins to embrace local festivals,
he's mesmerized by legends of the mountain, and he might be falling
in love. In learning to respect the forest on Mt. Kamusari for its
majestic qualities and its inexplicable secrets, Yuki starts to
appreciate Kamusari's harmony with nature and its ancient
traditions. In this warm and lively coming-of-age story, Miura
transports us from the trappings of city life to the trials,
mysteries, and delights of a mythical mountain forest.
Bestselling author Keiichiro Hirano offers a timeless ode to love's
fragility and its resilience in this delicate, award-winning novel.
Classical guitarist Satoshi Makino has toured the world and is at
the height of his career when he first lays eyes on journalist Yoko
Komine. Their bond forms instantly. Upon their first meeting, after
Makino's concert in Tokyo, they begin a conversation that will go
on for years, with long spells of silence broken by powerful
moments of connection. She's drawn by Makino's tender music and his
sensitivity, and he is intrigued by Yoko's refinement and
intellect. But neither knows enough about love to see it blooming
nor has the confidence to make the first move. Will their
connection endure, weaving them back together like instruments in a
symphony, or will fate lead them apart? Blending the harmonies of
Kazuo Ishiguro's Nocturnes and the sensuality of Ian McEwan's
Enduring Love, At the End of the Matinee is an enchanting and
thought-provoking love story.
Long recognized as a core book in any study of Japanese culture and
literature, The Nobility of Failure examines the lives and deaths
of nine historical individuals who faced overwhelming odds, and,
realizing they were doomed, accepted their fate--to be killed in
battle or by execution, to wither in exile, or to escape through
ritual suicide. Morris then turns his attention to the kamikaze
pilots of World War II, who gave their lives in defense of their
nation in the full realization that their deaths would have little
effect on the course of the war. Through detail, crystal-clear
prose and unmatched narrative sweep and brilliance, Professor
Morris takes you into the innermost hearts of the Japanese people.
Presenting a new collection of stories exploring the perennial
themes of Miyamoto Teru's fiction, narrative sketches of the
world-class world of the Osaka-Kobe region of his childhood
employing memory to reveal a story in layered frames of time with
consummate skill. His work examines the mutual proximity--or even
the identity--of life and death, often touching on such grim topics
with a touch of humor. Stories of personal triumph and hope are
often set in situations involving death, illness, or loss, but what
might be the stuff of tragedy in the hands of some writers turns
into stepping stones for his characters to climb upward and onward.
Miyamoto's considerable and devoted following in Japan has come
increasingly to be mirrored in other Asian countries and parts of
Europe as his fiction has been translated into various languages.
With renditions of only three of his works currently available in
English, however, Anglophone readers have for the most part been
unaware of the "Teru" literary phenomenon. The present collection
aims to fill part of this lack by offering a selection of some his
finest short stories along with one of his most admired
novellas--Phantom Lights--which was made into the internationally
acclaimed 1995 movie Maborosi by Koreeda Hirokazu. The will to
live, karma, and death are themes developed through the lives of
Miyamoto's fictional characters, who struggle to achieve closure
with their respective pasts and in their often difficult relations
with others. The comments of Washington Times writer Anna Chambers
in her review of Kinshu: Autumn Brocade aptly apply to the works
presented here as well: ..".existential crisis after existential
crisis force the characters to question whether one can shape one's
own karma--rather than construct one's own soul, as a Western
reader might have put it. And herein lies the Westerner's entree
into the book as more than an observer of Japanese culture." And
like Kinshu, the stories in the present collection provide "a
satisfying taste of what it means to grapple with fate at the
intersection of modernity and tradition." Miyamoto deftly weaves
his tales using scenes and settings from his native Kansai region,
and all are flavored with the language of western Japan. Like the
depressed areas described in much of his fiction, his characters
too are "left behind" by post-war Japan's rapid economic growth, by
unexpected changes in their lives, or by the deaths of loved ones.
His heroes are ordinary people who, as he puts it, "are trying to
lift themselves up, who are struggling to live," and who achieve
quiet triumphs.
|
Seeing Kyoto (Hardcover)
Juliet Winters Carpenter; Foreword by Soshitsu Sen
|
R959
R887
Discovery Miles 8 870
Save R72 (8%)
|
Ships in 12 - 17 working days
|
Tokyo may be the capital of Japan, but Kyoto is its heart and soul.
The rich textures of twelve centuries of culture seem to have woven
themselves into the very air. How else could you explain the
centuries-old feel of the Gion quarter, where geisha still ply
their trade? Or the quiet dignity of the cobblestone back streets
lined with traditional wooden houses?
Seeing Kyoto captures all the elegance and charm of Japan's most
beloved city with dozens of stunning images. One can imagine the
days when aristocrats and samurai inhabited these neighborhoods.
With insightful text, long-time Japan resident juliet Carpenter
delves into the cultural history of Kyoto, as well as its
treasures-artistic, culinary, and historical. She also introduces
the neighboring city of Nara, often referred to as little Kyoto.
Finally, Carpenter tackles the clash of old and new: how Kyotoites,
in their inimitable vigor, are turning the traditions of yesterday
into the strengths of today.
With a lyrical foreword by tea master Sen Soshitsu, Seeing Kyoto
offers an unparalleled view of one of the world's finest cities. It
explores everything from the ancient palaces to sacred temple
grounds, classic Japanese gardens to treasured artworks-in short, a
deluxe volume not to be missed.
|
You may like...
Catan
(16)
R1,150
R887
Discovery Miles 8 870
Loot
Nadine Gordimer
Paperback
(2)
R398
R330
Discovery Miles 3 300
|