Great reading that provides a sense of the city, from the Traveler online Ultimate Travel Library.
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A Personal Matter, Kenzaburo Oe (1968, English translation 1994)
Nobel Prize-winning novelist Kenzaburo Oe’s signature work about a teacher who considers abandoning his brain-damaged son; story parallels the author’s life; his son was born with a brain hernia and not predicted to survive past childhood.
Kitchen, Banana Yoshimoto (1988, English translation 1993)
Explosively popular stories incorporating pop culture, food, love, loss, and an easygoing (some say kitschy) brand of magical realism.
Audrey Hepburn’s Neck, Alan Brown (1997)
In this sly and sentimental cross-cultural tale, a twenty-something Tokyoite man’s infatuation with Western women has more to do with celluloid than lust.
Underground, by Haruki Murakami (1998, English translation 2000)
Japan’s most celebrated novelist, Haruki Murakami, takes on the 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway via interviews with victims, rescuers; revealing insights into the civic personality.
Out, by Natsuo Kirino (1997, English translation 2003)
Prize-winning thriller in which working-class female co-workers band together to conceal a murder, and encounter Tokyo’s seamier underbelly.
