Memoir books from Japan
Recommended memoir books (15)
Travel the world without leaving your chair.
If you are into memoir here are some memoir books from Japan for the next part of the Read Around The World Challenge.
1.
A River in Darkness : One Man's Escape from North Korea by Masaji Ishikawa EN
Description:
Previously published in Japan in 2000. Translated from Japanese by Risa Kobayashi and Martin Brown. First published in English by AmazonCrossing in 2017.
2.
At 30, I Realized I Had No Gender : Life Lessons from a 50-Year-Old After Two Decades of Self-Discovery by Arai Shou EN
Description:
At age 30, Shou Arai came to a realization; they had no gender. Now they were faced with a question they'd never really considered: how to age in a society where everything is so strongly segregated between two genders? This autobiographical manga explores Japanese culture surrounding gender, transgender issues, and the day to day obstacles faced by gender minorities and members of the LGBTQIA+ community with a lighthearted, comedic attitude.
3.
Barefoot Gen : A Cartoon Story of Hiroshima by Keiji Nakazawa EN
Description:
GRAPHIC NOVELS: MANGA. Beautiful new hardcover edition of Barefoot Gen Volume One! Striking new design with special sturdy binding for institutional use. August 6, 2015 marked the 70th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Today, the danger posed by nuclear weapons is as great as ever, yet few people survive who witnessed their horror. To mark the event, and honor Keiji Nakazawa's incredible work, Last Gasp created a special set of Barefoot Gen, volumes 1-4 for institutional use. Nakazawa's manga illustrates the true impact of nuclear weapons when used against a civilian... continue
4.
Description:
In 2015, an aspiring young journalist named Shiori Ito charged prominent reporter Noriyuki Yamaguchi with rape. After meeting up for drinks and networking, Ito remembers regaining consciousness in a hotel room while being assaulted. But when she went to the police, Ito was told that her case was a "black box"--untouchable and unprosecutable. Upon publication in 2017, Ito's searing account foregrounded the #MeToo movement in Japan and became the center of an urgent cultural and legal shift around recognizing sexual assault and gender-based violence. As international outlets covered every step o... continue
5.
Emotional Female by Yumiko Kadota EN
Description:
Yumiko Kadota was every Asian parent's dream- model student, top of her class in medical school and on track to becoming a surgeon. A self-confessed workaholic, she regularly put 'knife before life', knowing it was all going to be worth it because it would lead to her longed-for career. But if the punishing hours in surgery weren't hard enough, she also faced challenges as a young female surgeon navigating a male-dominated specialty. She was regularly left to carry out complex procedures without senior surgeons' oversight; she was called all sorts of things, from 'emotional' to 'too confident'... continue
6.
Geisha : A Life by Mineko Iwasaki EN
Description:
A Kyoto geisha describes her initiation into an okiya at the age of four, the intricate training that made up most of her education, her successful career, and the traditions surrounding the geisha culture.
7.
Mornings Without Mii by Mayumi Inaba EN
Description:
INDIE BESTSELLER A Must-Read: The New Yorker * Literary Hub * The Millions * Kirkus Reviews * Shelf Awareness * BookBub "I have never read a book quite like this. [A] profoundly real, specific, moving, and beautifully written story." ―Elif Batuman, author of Either/Or "[A] moving memoir . . . [of] the daily joys and intimacies of having a pet . . . Inaba's portrait of the human-feline relationship is reverential, an expression of devotion." --The New Yorker Mornings Without Mii is a beloved Japanese modern classic: a deeply affecting story of solitude, independence, writing, grief, love, and l... continue
8.
Murakami T : The T-Shirts I Love by Haruki Murakami EN
Description:
The international literary icon opens his eclectic closet: Here are photographs of Murakami’s extensive and personal T-shirt collection, accompanied by essays that reveal a side of the writer rarely seen by the public. Many of Haruki Murakami's fans know about his massive vinyl record collection (10,000 albums!) and his obsession with running, but few have heard about a more intimate passion: his T-shirt collecting. In Murakami T, the famously reclusive novelist shows us his T-shirts—from concert shirts to never-worn whiskey-themed Ts, and from beloved bookstore swag to the shirt that inspired... continue
9.
Rashōmon and Seventeen Other Stories by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa EN
Description:
Ryunosuke Akutagawa (1892-1927) is one of Japan's foremost stylists - a modernist master whose short stories are marked by highly original imagery, cynicism, beauty and wild humour. "Rashomon" and "In a Bamboo Grove" inspired Kurosawa's magnificent film and depict a past in which morality is turned upside down, while tales such as "The Nose", "O-Gin" and "Loyalty" paint a rich and imaginative picture of a medieval Japan peopled by Shoguns and priests, vagrants and peasants. And in later works such as "Death Register", "The Life of a Stupid Man" and "Spinning Gears", Akutagawa drew from his own... continue
10.
Samurai! by Saburo Sakai, Martin Caidin, Fred Saito EN
Description:
Saburo Sakai was Japan's greatest fighter pilot to survive World War II. A veteran of more than two hundred dogfights, Sakai reportedly shot down sixty-four Allied planes, but he is best known for flying his crippled Zero nearly 600 miles to safety while partially paralyzed and nearly blind from multiple wounds.