The rise of Japanese Fiction

This blog post was written by guest blogger Conor.

The popularity of Japanese fiction has grown rapidly in recent years. Nearly half of the top translated novels in 2024 were written by Japanese authors, reflecting a growing interest in stories that explore identity and modern societal pressure through vivid characters and beautifully understated storytelling.

Hopefully by now you have started to see some of our Japanese collection titles appearing in your local libraries and in the online catalogue.
 
My own fascination with Japanese literature began with Haruki Murakami, the author of modern classics such as Norwegian Wood and Kafka on the Shore. Murakami novels can be broken into two categories, those set in reality and those that blend with magical realism. If you are into talking cats and alternative universes, then it certainly warrants your attention. One of the more interesting aspects of some of his works is that the majority of the story may be based in reality and then boom, he hits you with the magical realism curve ball and then springs you back to reality, leaving certain themes and events open to your interpretation (Sputnik Sweetheart). This is what I love about it. There is space to invest my own imagination and theories into his work. He has allowed that space to exist so I can decide what the story means to me.

Norwegian Wood is very much in the reality category. Toru, a quiet, serious student, has a complicated relationship with Naoko, an introspective young woman. They are connected through the tragic death of a mutual friend. The story takes us along with Toru as he adapts to the pressures and expectations of life and introduces us to a second relationship with Midori who is very different to Naoko. The title rightly made Murakami a superstar and is considered to be one of his best works.

In contrast to Murakami, Kazuo Ishiguro is a Japanese born British novelist famous for The Remains of the Day (Booker winner 1989), Never let me go (voted best novel of 2005 by Time) and Klara and the Sun (2021). While all three novels are highly enjoyable, with completely different settings and characters, one theme that runs throughout them is our interaction with the people around us and how that impacts our own perception of ourselves and our life. In Remains of the Day, the relationship between Stevens the butler and Miss Kenton the housekeeper is often governed by all the things they simply don’t say to each other. Their social class and starting out point corrals them along a path that they either refuse or can’t break from.
 
Away from the serious business of thinking about life and our place in it, one title that I found extremely funny was Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata. It centres around Keiko, a 36 year old woman who is aware that she is ‘different’ by shunning the norms of society. The norms being that she is single and not married, and chooses to works part time – not actively seeking a more permanent and fulltime career which would be altogether more acceptable.
 
The novel is a dead pan critic of societal convention setting itself up as a shallow puddle but on second look might be deeper than an ocean. How many traits of humanity does society still retain? See, I said it was funny.
 
It would be impossible to describe in detail many of these titles in such short a space, but I have yet to read any titles in the Japanese collection that I did not gleam a high level of interest and continuing fascination from. Honourable other mentions that I sadly ran out of time to cover would be Butter by Asako Yuzuki  (which is our Book of the Month for May) and The Sailor who fell from Grace with the Sea by Yukio Mishima.