Haruki Murakami introduced the world to Japanese literature. But the generation that followed him is even more interesting — more rooted in Japanese social reality, more formally inventive, more politically urgent.
The New Japanese Fiction
Yoko Ogawa — The Memory Police (1994, English 2019) is a Kafka-esque dystopia about erasure and surveillance. One of the most haunting novels of any era. Sayaka Murata — Convenience Store Woman (2016) dissects Japanese social conformity through a woman who finds identity in a convenience store job. Mieko Kawakami — Breasts and Eggs (2008/2020) is a bold feminist novel set in Osaka. Hiromi Kawakami — The Nakano Thrift Shop and Strange Weather in Tokyo capture quiet loneliness with great charm.
Map your Japanese reading on the Genesis of Literary world map.