Guest editor Rea Amit shares a list of 34 books by Japanese women writers
The noticeable changes from twentieth- to twenty-first-century writers reflects the continued presence and importance of feminism internationally as Japanese women continue to move out of the spaces given to them within a male-dominated field.
Guest editor Rea Amit on the recent history of Japanese women writing literature. “women writers continue to uphold and revitalize the written word as a platform for meaningful engagement in the twenty-first century.”
“On the last solar term of autumn / so many good things are disappearing / The birds have printed their footsteps on the frosted tiles,” from “Frost‘s Descent,” by Ma Yongbo (trans. by Zack Rogow)
“my country is at war and I want a farmer cheese and vanilla bun / to travel to Europe and to not see the sign ‘You’re Safe Here’,” from [My country is at war], by Olga Bragina (trans. by Olga Zilberbourg)
“n the free circulation of commodities, there is no center or edge. We are all part of the same untraceable sludge,” from “Dead Horse Bay,” by Santiago Acosta (trans. by Tiffany Troy & The Women in Translation Project)
The Roar
Deciding between his mother’s sweet love and his father’s conditional approval, Kimurguk endures a harrowing rite of passage to transform from boy to man.
You Have to Read This!
Be careful what you wish for—especially online, especially if you’re a woman—in this modern adaptation of W. W. Jacobs’s “The Monkey’s Paw.”
Shizue Ogawa pays particular attention to the resonances between Western and Eastern culture that inspire her philosophical, aesthetic, and cosmic reflections. Here, Alice-Catherine Carls offers an overview of her remarkable literary career along with four of Ogawa’s best-known poems.
An American teacher on a Fulbright in Kolkata encounters a surprising flashpoint in a classroom discussion of concrete nouns.
Inspired by a photo and the histories connected to it, a writer makes a film to mark Wole Soyinka’s ninetieth year.
Into the Woods: A Conversation with Italian Writer Maddalena Vaglio Tanet
A conversation with Italian novelist Maddalena Vaglio Tanet, whose debut novel, Untold Lessons, tells the story of schoolteacher Silvia who, plagued by guilt after the suicide of one of her students, suddenly goes missing.
8 Questions for Barrack Zailaa Rima
An interview with Barrack Zailaa Rima, whose graphic three-volume trilogy, Beirut, traces a visit Rima made to the Lebanese capital.