Monkey Business: New Writing From Japan - Volume 7

Monkey Business: New Writing from Japan #7

by Motoyuki Shibata (Editor), Ted Goosen (Editor), Meg Taylor (Editor)

Now celebrating its seventh year, Issue 7 of Monkey Business features stories by some of the best contemporary literary voices in Japan today, including Hideo Furukawa, Hiromi Ito, Hiroko Oyamada, and Aoko Matsuda. Canadian and American authors Helen Guri and Brian Evenson also join this amazing line up, and amongst the pages of the latest Monkey also lies a graphic narrative by Satoshi Kitamura, and an interview between Monkey man Motoyuki Shibata and Haruki Murakami. These and many more of the best contemporary voices of Japanese and American literature make up the lyrical and literary prose of this newest issue of Monkey Business.

Since its first issue in 2011, Monkey Business: New Writing from Japan has showcased the best of contemporary Japanese literature. Monkey Business features the short fiction and poetry of writers such as Hideo Furukawa, Mina Ishikawa, Hiromi Ito, Mieko Kawakami, Sachiko Kishimoto, Hiromi Kawakami, Aoko Matsuda, and Yoko Ogawa; interviews and essays by writers such as Haruki Murakami; new translations of the work of earlier writers such as Rampo Edogawa, Kafu Nagai, and Soseki Natsume; and graphic stories by Satoshi Kitamura and the Brother and Sister Nishioka.

Monkey Business: New Writing from Japan is an annual English-language edition of the acclaimed literary magazine.

Genres: Japan, Japanese Literature, Short Stories

240 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2017

Reviews

[Achab_ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Many great stories that make me wish more Japanese authors were translated into English. Maybe I'll have to learn Japanese ;)

[Mavel · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF: I bought this book on one of my book-buying splurges back when I lived in Tokyo, and serves me right for not liking it. I shouldn't have even picked this up since I already knew I don't like modern Japanese fiction (read: Genichiro Takahashi's Sayonara, Gangsters, Mari Akasaka's Vibrator, and everything I have read of Haruki Murakami's with the special exception of Kafka on the Shore)... but hey, Kinokuniya Shinjuku had it on sale if I remember correctly.

Of "The Magician" by Taki Monma, the one short story I liked the most in this collection—which is to say I didn't downright hate it—I wonder if it's because of the quality of the translation? It wasn't as bad as some of the translations I had the misfortune of reading, but I somewhat suspect that the translation might not have retained the voice and rhythm of the story in the original language. I have a sense of the feeling that Monma was trying to convey, but the English translation was quite dry.