New Japanese Voices: The Best Contemporary Fiction from Japan (A Morgan Entrekin book)
Refuting the popular belief that literature in Japan is "dead," novelist McInerney states that current fiction there shows "the hybrid vigor of the traditional and the modern." While certainly vigorous, these 12 stories, all by prizewinning writers, are less "hybrid" than cutting-edge cosmopolitan: although primarily set in Japan, they seem products of a pure universe in which Kafka and the Divine Comedy are common points of reference; in which Helen Keller is so well known that an anecdote describing her progress need identify her only by first name. Mitsios, a professor of English, assembles an impressive range of literary ambassadors, from Sei Takekawa's sophisticated horror tale "On a Moonless Night" to Genichiro Takahashi's baseball story "The Imitation of Leibniz" and Eimi Yamada's erotic "X-Rated Blanket." Among the more poignant entries is Shiina Makoto's "Swallowtails," in which a teacher tells a struggling young couple that a classmate has accused their son of stealing, while perhaps the most comic is "The Unsinkable Molly Brown," by Tamio Kageyama, about an obese student at a scuba-diving school. This anthology should firmly resolve debates about the vitality of Japanese fiction.Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.