This comprehensive anthology collects works of fiction, poetry, drama, and essay-writing from a pivotal time in Japanese history. In addition to their literary achievements, the texts reflect the political, social, and intellectual changes that occurred in Japanese society during this period, including exposure to Western ideas and literature, the rise of nationalism, and the complex interaction of traditional and modern forces. The volume offers outstanding, often new translations of classic texts by such celebrated writers as Nagai Kafu, Shimazaki Toson, Natsume Soseki, Kawabata Yasunari, and Yosano Akiko. The editors have also unearthed works from lesser-known women writers, many of which have never been available in English. Organized chronologically and by genre within each period, the volume reveals the major influences in the development of modern Japanese literature: the Japanese classics themselves, the example of Chinese poetry, and the encounter with Western literature and culture. Modern Japanese writers reread the classics of Japanese literature, infused them with contemporary language, and refashioned them with an increased emphasis on psychological elements. They also reinterpreted older aesthetic concepts in light of twentieth-century mentalities. While modern ideas captured the imagination of some Japanese writers, the example of classical Chinese poetry remained important for others. Meiji writers continued to compose poetry in classical Chinese and adhere to a Confucian system of thought. Another factor in shaping modern Japanese literature was the example of foreign works, which offered new literary inspiration and opportunities for Japanese readers and writers. Divided into four chapters, the anthology begins with the early modern texts of the 1870s, continues with works written during the years of social change preceding World War I and the innovative writing of the interwar period, and concludes with texts from World War II. Each chapter includes a helpful critical introduction, situating the works within their literary, political, and cultural contexts. Additionally, there are biographical introductions for each writer.

Product Description: An affirmation of faith and identity by Japan's leading Christian novelist.Eleven short, deeply spiritual stories ranging from autobiographical serendipities to solemn, empathetic parables. The title story is set during the 18th-century Shogunate persecution of Christians in Japan...read more

Product Description: This comprehensive anthology collects works of fiction, poetry, drama, and essay-writing from a pivotal time in Japanese history. In addition to their literary achievements, the texts reflect the political, social, and intellectual changes that occurred in Japanese society during this period, including exposure to Western ideas and literature, the rise of nationalism, and the complex interaction of traditional and modern forces...read more

Product Description: In Volume 2 of Columbia's comprehensive anthology of modern Japanese literature, thoughtfully selected and carefully translated readings portray the vast changes that have transformed Japanese culture since the end of the Pacific War...read more

Product Description: Suguro is an eminent Catholic novelist, about to receive a major literary award. So when a drunk woman he has never met before approaches him at the award ceremony, claiming she knows him well from his regular visits to Tokyo's red-light district, she must surely be mistaken? But with a scurrilous press campaign damaging Suguro's reputation, his sleazy doppelgänger appears more and more, as if deliberately trying to discredit him...read more

Product Description: Five wonderful stories by the Japanese master. Winner of every major Japanese literary prize, his work translated around the globe, Shusaku Endo (1923-1996) is a great and unique figure in the literature of the twentient century. "Irrevocably enmeshed in Japanese culture, he is by virtue of his religion [Endo was Roman Catholic] irrevocably alienated from it" (Geoffrey O'Brian, Village Voice)...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

The acclaimed author of Silence offers a religious vision combining Christian faith with Buddhist acceptance in the story of a group of Japanese tourists who converge at the Ganges River, in an India vividly brought to life. (view table of contents)

Product Description: Covering 60 years of literature, this anthology presents both established authors as well as numerous writers, almost unknown in English. (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: This volume traces the lives and careers of three literary giants and their varying responses to Japan's increasing internationalization.

Product Description: The acclaimed short stories of the master Japanese writer.The arresting beauty of Shusaku Endo's fiction is best known in the West through his highly acclaimed novels The Samurai and Silence. His consummately wrought short stories, with their worlds of deep shadows and achieved clarity, are less familiar...read more

Suguro, a respected and famous Catholic writer, finds his life scandalized by accusations that he frequents the red-light district, and he soon discovers an imposter who forces him to question his own moral character

Stories present scenes from daily life in Japan and explore the changes in Japanese society