Category Archives: Japanese Literature

Another Kind of Paradise by Trevor Carolan, Ed.

Synopsis: Short Stories from the New Asia-Pacific. Review: Another Kind of Paradise is a collection of stories from Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Burma, Thailand, Viet Nam, Cambodia, and more. My favorite was “Their Son” by Hong Ying from China, which takes expectations about parents and children and totally upends them. It was sad, sweet, funny, and provocative. “Third Meeting” by Mi-na Choi from Korea had a narrator that really grabbed me, even though the story was heartbreaking beyond words.

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Charanavi by Masahiro Tsuromoto

Synopsis: How your birthday tells you who you are. Review: Charanavi is a Japanese book in translation and offers a fortune-telling system that relates your birthday to a type of animal. Based on my birthday, 11/4/1973, I am a “potential tanuki.” A tanuki is a sort of raccoon indigenous to Japan. Being a potential tanuki means that I am “genial and rather passive in nature, with a warm and gentle personality that is loved by everyone.” Um, anyone who knows me in real life is…

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