Japanese, Chinese, Korean & Other Literature Books

Oceans and decades apart, two women are inextricably bound by the secrets between them.Japan, 1957. Seventeen-year-old Naoko Nakamura’s prearranged marriage would secure her family’s status in their traditional Japanese community, but Naoko...

Through eight 'biographies' of Korean women aged 10 to 80, the author of Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 delivers a searing critique of the gender pressures and injustices rife in modern Korea. Eight women. Eight stories. One reality. A woman is born...

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is a tour de force--and one of Haruki Murakami's most acclaimed and beloved novels.In a Tokyo suburb, a young man named Toru Okada searches for his wife's missing cat--and then for his wife as well--in a netherworld beneath the...

Demonstrating again the artful simplicity and depth of her vision, Banana Yoshimoto reestablishes her place as a writer of international stature in a book that may be her most delightful since Kitchen.   In Asleep, Yoshimoto spins the stories of three...

(Available after 3-20 days) A woman walks into an employment agency and requests a job that requires no reading, no writing - and ideally, very little thinking.She is sent to an office building where she is tasked with watching the hidden-camera feed of...

In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humour and heart, she tells of growing up the only Asian-American kid at her school in Eugene,...

(Available on July 8, 2021)Natsuki isn't like the other girls. She has a wand and a transformation mirror. She might be a witch, or an alien from another planet. Together with her cousin Yuu, Natsuki spends her summers in the wild mountains of Nagano,...

From the critically acclaimed author of Rainbirds comes a novel of tragedy anddark histories set in Japan. University sophomore Miwako Sumida has hanged herself, leaving those closest to her reeling. In the months before her suicide, she was hiding away...

Shrewd, enchanting and extremely funny, Bulgakov’s seminal masterpiece is one of the most sparkling critiques of totalitarianism ever produced. Ingeniously intertwining narratives, from remorse-ridden Pontius Pilate to a persecuted writer in Stalinist...

NOW A NETFLIX ORIGINAL SERIES   If you find one, he's already found you .... From the creator of The Killing, “a full-throttle thriller in the tradition of classic Stieg Larsson” (A.J. Finn, author of The Woman in the Window). Winner of the Barry Award...

(Available after 3-20 days)A short novel by Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal, called "our very best writer today" by Milan Kundera, this eccentric romp celebrates the indestructability––against censorship and political oppression––of the written word.   Too...

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...

This eclectic, moving and richly enjoyable collection is the essential introduction to Korean literature.Journeying through Korea's dramatic recent past, from the Japanese occupation and colonial era to the devastating war between north and south and the...

Amidst the seedy hotels and deserted campsites of the Costa Brava, someone has gone missing. A detective sets out to find them. They search among the hapless girls, failed poets, and shifty policemen that populate this dream world – but every door...

If you could swap your life for a better one, which would you choose?On the outskirts of Rainbow Town, there is an old, abandoned house. They say that if you send a letter detailing your misfortunes there, you could receive a ticket. If you bring this...

A novel of lesbian identity and motherhood, and the societal pressures that place them in opposition.The daughter of an illustrious French family whose members include a former Prime Minister, a model, and a journalist, Constance Debré abandoned...

A fierce mixed-race fighter develops a powerful attachment to the yakuza princess she’s been forced to protect in this explosive queer thriller: Kill Bill meets The Handmaiden meets Thelma and Louise.Tokyo, 1979. Yoriko Shindo, a workhorse of a...

A sensational 1954 French novel that has become a contemporary classic. Set against the translucent beauty of France in summer, Bonjour Tristesse is a bittersweet tale narrated by Cecile, a seventeen-year-old girl on the brink of womanhood,...

From the author of Elena Knows, finalist for the 2022 International Booker Prize 20 years after a shocking accident, Mary Lohan returns to the Buenos Aires suburb she escaped in a fugue of guilt and isolation. She is not the same—not her name...

'One of the few great and perfect works of poetic imagination written during this century' -- Elias Canetti.WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ADAM THIRWELL.One morning, Gregor Samsa wakes up to find himself transformed into a giant insect. His family is...