Japanese, Chinese, Korean & Other Literature Books

Tsukiko is in her late 30s and living alone when one night she happens to meet one of her former high school teachers, 'Sensei', in a bar. He is at least thirty years her senior, retired and, she presumes, a widower. After this initial encounter, the...

A piercing and passionate novel, set in rural Argentina, about violence and masculinityOscar Tamai and Elvio Miranda, the patriarchs of two families of brickmakers, have for years nursed a mutual hatred, but their teenage sons, Pájaro and Ángelito,...

Winner of a PEN/Heim Grant.Cursed Bunny is a genre-defying collection of short stories by Korean author Bora Chung.Blurring the lines between magical realism, horror, and science-fiction, Chung uses elements of the fantastic and surreal to address the...

A philosophical novel described by fellow existentialist Sartre as 'perhaps the most beautiful and the least understood' of his novels, Albert Camus' The Fall is translated by Robin Buss in Penguin Modern Classics.Jean-Baptiste Clamence is a soul in...

A haunting, bizarre short story collection about violence, mental illness, and the warped contradictions of the twentieth-century female experience.  A close friend and protégé of Marguerite Duras, Barbara Molinard (1921–1986)...

(Available after December 30th, 2022)For the first time in English, literary icon Marguerite Duras's foundational masterpiece about a young woman's existential breakdown in the deceptively peaceful French countryside.The Easy Life is the story of...

A woman finds herself filling a pit in the forest in the middle of the night; a family lock each other in their bedrooms to battle a strange plague; a wizard punishes two beautiful ballerinas by turning them into one hugely fat circus performer; a...

(Available after April 30th, 2023)Originally published in 1945, this book of poetic prose encapsulates former journalist Elizabeth Smart’s relationship with poet George Barker. Instantly, upon picking up a book of his poetry while browsing through a...

The long-awaited first short story-collection by the author of the cult sensation Convenience Store Woman, tales of weird love, heartfelt friendships, and the unsettling nature of human existence   With Life Ceremony, the incomparable Sayaka Murata is...

The ultimate cat-and-mouse thriller starring a serial killer chef and the hungry young journalist craving to learn her secrets. Set in Japan against a backdrop of culinary intrigue and obsession, Butter has already reached cult bestseller...

Shanghai, 1930s. Shen Shijun, a young engineer, has fallen in love with his colleague, the beautiful Gu Manzhen. He is determined to resist his family’s efforts to match him with his wealthy cousin so that he can marry her. But dark...

From the author of the International Booker Prize-winning Time Shelter comes another mind-expanding adventure in the realms of memory, empathy and the history we can't escape, as the unnamed narrator tries to live with a pathological condition that...

'And so, with great care, he planted his hundred acorns' While hiking through the wild lavender in a wind-swept, desolate valley in Provence, a man comes across a solitary shepherd called Elzéard Bouffier. Staying with him, he watches...

(Available after 3-20 days)  Her pupils murdered her daughter. Now she will have her revenge.   After calling off her engagement in the wake of a tragic revelation, Yuko Moriguchi had nothing to live for except her only child, four-year-old child, Manami...

A seductive, disorienting novel that manipulates the fragile line between dreams and reality, by South Korea's leading contemporary writer   A startling and boundary-pushing novel , Untold Night and Day tells the story of a young woman's journey through...

Hurricane Season is a stunning, unsparing depiction of small-town claustrophobia in a Mexican village, crippled by violent mythologies feeding misogyny and femicide. Fernanda Melchor writes with the savage force that the themes of her work demand,...

A genre-warping, time-travelling horror novel-slash-feminist manifesto for fans of Clarice Lispector and Jeanette Winterson.Welcome to 1990s Norway. White picket fences run in neat rows and Christian conservatism runs deep. But as the Artist considers...

(Available after 3-20 days)Communication—or the lack thereof—is the subject of this sly update of the picaresque novel. No One Writes Back is the story of a young man who leaves home with only his blind dog, an MP3 player, and a book, traveling aimlessly...

WINNER OF THE 2022 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATUREThe diary of one of France’s most important, award-winning writers during the year she had a passionate and secret love affair with a Russian diplomatGetting Lost is the diary Annie Ernaux kept...

The landmark novel that inspired Verdi’s opera La Traviata, in a sparkling new translation"One of the greatest love stories of all time," according to Henry James, and the inspiration for Verdi’s opera La Traviata, the...