Japanese Literature
This page covers Japanese literature. McKee Library's collection includes numerous titles by Russian authors. We have included a selection of these titles in our reading list, linked below.
- Japanese Literature Reading ListA Japanese literature reading list. This is not an exhaustive list, rather a list of titles available in McKee Library's collection.
Research and Reference
- Japanese Literature: BritannicaInformation regarding Japanese literature from Britannica.
- Japanese Literature: Credo ReferenceA Credo Reference landing page on Japanese Literature. This page includes links to articles, library resources, and a concept map.
- National Institute of Japanese LiteratureThe NIJL houses tens of thousands of items from the Japanese legacy of literature and all other sorts of other genres as well. Many of these books are depicted vividly, not only in prose and poetry, but also with abundant, beautiful illustrations. It's fun to get to know the Japanese classics.
Streaming Media
- Lady Murasaki Writes the First NovelAt the height of the Heian period, Japan was breaking away from Chinese influence and developing its own courtly culture, with women emerging as a powerful force in art and literature. Here you will meet Murasaki Shikibu, the woman who wrote the world’s first novel: The Tale of Genji.
- Traditional Japanese Poetry, Dance, Music, and TheaterCamera Three presents dances, poetry, music, and theater from Japan. The program includes excerpts from The Tale of Heike, The Salt Gatherer, On the Unreal Dwelling, Dialogue on Poverty, and poems from the Kokinshu.
Perspectives & Author's Works
The Tale of Genji
The world's first novel, in a translation that is "likely to be the definitive edition . . . for many years to come" (The Wall Street Journal) A Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition, with flaps and deckle-edged paper Written in the eleventh century, this exquisite portrait of courtly life in medieval Japan is widely celebrated as the world's first novel. Genji, the Shining Prince, is the son of an emperor. He is a passionate character whose tempestuous nature, family circumstances, love affairs, alliances, and shifting political fortunes form the core of this magnificent epic. Royall Tyler's superior translation is detailed, poetic, and superbly true to the Japanese original while allowing the modern reader to appreciate it as a contemporary treasure. Supplemented with detailed notes, glossaries, character lists, and chronologies to help the reader navigate the multigenerational narrative, this comprehensive edition presents this ancient tale in the grand style that it deserves.
Madama Butterfly/Madamu Batafurai
Puccini's famous but controversial Madama Butterfly reflects a practice of 'temporary marriage' between Western men and Japanese women in nineteenth-century treaty ports. Groos' book identifies the plot's origin in an eye-witness account and traces its transmission via John Luther Long's short story and David Belasco's play. Archival sources, many unpublished, reveal how Puccini and his librettists imbued the opera with differing constructions of the action and its heroine. Groos's analysis suggests how they constructed a 'contemporary' music-drama with multiple possibilities for interpreting the misalliance between a callous American naval officer and an impoverished fifteen-year-old geisha, providing a more complex understanding of the heroine's presumed 'marriage'. As an orientalizing tragedy with a racially inflected representation of Cio-Cio-San, the opera became a lightning rod for identity politics in Japan, while also stimulating decolonizing transpositions into indigenous theatre traditions such as Bunraku puppet theatre and Takarazuka musicals.
What I Talk about When I Talk about Running
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, Haruki Murakami decided to keep a journal of his progress. The result is a memoir about his intertwined obsessions with running and writing, full of vivid recollections and insights, including the eureka moment when he decided to become a writer. By turns funny and sobering, playful and philosophical, here is a rich and revelatory work that elevates the human need for motion to an art form.
The Pillow Book
A new translation of the idiosyncratic diary of a C10 court lady in Heian Japan. Along with the TALE OF GENJI, this is one of the major Japanese Classics.
Men Without Women
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * Including the story "Drive My Car"--now an Academy Award-nominated film--this collection from the internationally acclaimed author "examines what happens to characters without important women in their lives; it'll move you and confuse you and sometimes leave you with more questions than answers" (Barack Obama). Across seven tales, Haruki Murakami brings his powers of observation to bear on the lives of men who, in their own ways, find themselves alone. Here are lovesick doctors, students, ex-boyfriends, actors, bartenders, and even Kafka's Gregor Samsa, brought together to tell stories that speak to us all. In Men Without Women Murakami has crafted another contemporary classic, marked by the same wry humor and pathos that have defined his entire body of work.
Other Voices, Other Vistas
This collection of contemporary multi-cultural fiction includes stories by: Bessie Head * Charles Mungoshi * Ngugi wa Thiong'o * Wang Anyi * Ding Ling * Wang Meng * Chen Rong * Lu Wenfu * Anita Desai * Mahasweta Devi * Ruth Prawer Jhabvala * R. K. Narayan * Khushwant Singh * Kobo Abe * Sawako Ariyoshi * Yasunari Kawabata * Yukio Mishima * Yuko Tsushima * Carlos Fuentes * Luisa Valenzuela * Nadine Gordimer * Isabel Allende