Japanese, Chinese, Korean & Other Literature Books

“Vita Nostra” — a cross between Lev Grossman’s “The Magicians” and Elizabeth Kostova’s “The Historian” [...] is the anti-Harry Potter you didn’t know you wanted.” — The Washington Post   “Vita Nostra has become a powerful influence on my own writing...

The Setting Sun is a gorgeous and deeply sensible story of the changing of Japanese tradition after World War II, all from the lens of a heroine going through her own changes offset by the challenges of modernity. Timeless and lyrical, it's a story...

An intimate look at writing, running, and the incredible way they intersect, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running is an illuminating glimpse into the solitary passions of one of our greatest artists.While training for the New York City Marathon,...

When the down-at-heel Princess Zasyekin moves next door to the country estate of Vladimir Petrovich's parents, he instantly and overwhelmingly falls in love with his new neighbour's daughter, Zinaida. But the capricious young woman already has many...

In the seaside city of Kamakura, a student is drawn to an enigmatic older man who swims at the same beach. The man becomes his Sensei. Against a backdrop of the rapid modernisation of Japan, their relationship endures - until one day, the young man...

For the characters in after the quake, the Kobe earthquake is an echo from a past they buried long ago. Satsuki has spent thirty years hating one man: did her desire for revenge cause the earthquake? Miyake left his family in Kobe to make midnight...

Junichirō Tanizaki's magisterial evocation of a proud Osaka family in decline during the years immediately before World War II is arguably the greatest Japanese novel of the twentieth century and a classic of international literature. Tsuruko, the eldest...

Each morning, the Professor and the Housekeeper are introduced to one another. The Professor may not remember what he had for breakfast, but his mind is still alive with elegant mathematical equations from the past. He devises clever maths riddles -...

Written when Mishima was only twentysix, Forbidden Colors is a depiction of a male homosexual relationship, in which a rich older man buys the love of a young man who is stunningly handsome but who lacks the ability to love. As in Mann's Death in Venice,...

In the Tokyo suburbs four women work the graveyard shift at a factory. Burdened with heavy debts, alienated from husbands and children, they all secretly dream of a way out of their dead-end lives. A young mother among them finally cracks and strangles...

Special collectors' hardback editions lovingly restored to original designs'I love these editions-so beautifully produced, so solid and permanent, just as Tove Jansson deserved.' Philip PullmanA beautiful collectors' edition of this classic Moomin story,...

(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...

Cormac McCarthy meets Gabriel Garcia Marquez meets Don DeLillo in a novel that pushes the very form to its limits as storylines about art and academia, love, life and death collide.A NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER. A NEW YORK TIMES BEST BOOK...

“One of our major novelists” (Salman Rushdie) tells the story of a woman reflecting on her uncompromising life, and the life of a former lover, in this provocative novel.“Yiyun Li is one of my favorite writers, and Must I...

A collection of four spooky tales for the modern era, all tied to a certain Kyoto curio shop. A basket wriggles, a masked man lingers in the shadows, and things are offered, lost, and forgotten. What mysteries lie hidden in the city’s winding...

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE. What happens when the person you’ve built your entire life on is suddenly gone? This question lies at the heart of Jente Posthuma’s deceptively simple What I’d Rather Not Think About...

A stylishly original collection of seven newly translated stories from the iconic Japanese writerThe stories in this fantastical, unconventional collection are subtly wrought depictions of the darkness of our desires. From an isolated bamboo grove, to a...

A spellbinding selection of short stories in the original Italian alongside their English translations This new dual-language edition of ten stories selected from The Penguin Book of Italian Short Stories celebrates some of the very best...

The fourth novel in the internationally bestselling Before the Coffee Gets Cold Series, following a new group of customers in a magical time-traveling Tokyo caféThe regulars at Café Funiculi Funicula are well acquainted with the whimsical...

WINNER OF THE 2022 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATUREA New York Times Notable BookIn her spare, stark style, Annie Ernaux documents the desires and indignities of a human heart ensnared in an all-consuming passion.Blurring the line between fact and...