Monkey Business: New Writing from Japan Volume 6

Monkey Business: New Writing from Japan #6

by Motoyuki Shibata, Aoko Matsuda, Kelly Link

“An astonishment, by turns playful and profound, that makes you wish it were a monthly.” —Junot Diaz, author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

“Monkey Business is full of deep, funny, wild, scary, fabulous, moving, surprising, brilliant work. There is no literary magazine, no magazine period, that I get more excited about reading.” —Laird Hunt, author of Neverhome

“I feel my brain being reconfigured every time I read Monkey Business. The Japanese sense of story is very different from the American or Western sense of story, and it always opens up possibilities for me.” —Matthew Sharpe, author of Jamestown

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.

Issue 6 kicks off with Part 10 of “The Forbidden Diary”, the ongoing serialization of a fictional diary by Sachiko Kishimoto. Aoko Matsuda, one of Japan’s most promising young writers, graces the pages of Monkey once more with her short story "Love Isn't Easy When You're the National Anthem". American and British authors such as Kelly Link, Linh Dinh, and Jason Hrivnak join contemporary Japanese authors Hideo Furukawa, Tomoka Shibasaki, and Hiromi Kawakami; as well as new translations from classic Japanese novelists Soseki Natsume and Shin'ichi Hoshi. 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.

Genres: Japan, Fiction, Anthologies, Short Stories, Japanese Literature

307 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 7, 2018

Reviews

[Michael Kato · Rating 4 out of 5]

As with many collections of short stories, there are highs and lows. More likely than not, one person's peaks are valleys or even caverns to another. In the case of Monkey Business, it makes an even more complex task for the editors, when new contemporary writing from Japan includes first or new translations of long-dead literary giants.

The stories included in this collection are, for the most part, quite outstanding. I found some of them very good. The graphic narrative by Satoshi Kitamura, "Igor Nocturnov," was silly and entertaining."Background Music," a short story by Tomoka Shibasaki, was written in manner that was both graphic and aural, invoking contemporary music that could almost be heard while reading it. "Itō Returns to Japan and Finds Herself in a Real Pinch" is a chapter from a novel (sort of!) by Hiromi Itō. While I can't quite comprehend what is meant by the title of this chapter, since the story itself is written with a "Hiromi Itō" as the main character, it seems likely that the story is autobiographical. The experiences of the protagonist, therefore, seem even more extraordinary and challenging. Finally, in "The First Asura," Hideo Furukawa weaves a strange and mesmerizing tale that evokes clear images of contemporary Tokyo, with a hint of mostly psychological cyberpunk.

I like a lot of contemporary Japanese literature. Starting with some of the literary giants, including Natsume Soseki and Yasunari Kawabata, I've enjoyed many others, including Yukio Mishima, Kaiko Ken, Haruki Murakami, and Ryu Murakami. I've also read quite a bit of Japanese manga, and am even a bigger fan of anime. For me, then, I'm very interested in the Japanese pop culture scene, including contemporary literature.

But I think that Monkey Business is good reading, even without the Japanese angle. It's really good contemporary literature. You won't be disappointed.

[Jeroen Bottema · Rating 4 out of 5]

In volume 6 (2016) of Monkey Business: New Writing from Japan, you’ll find a new translation of a short story by Soseki Natsume, one of the founding fathers of modern literature in Japan, next to work by popular contemporary authors like Mieko Kawakami. That’s range, people, and the reason an anthology of short stories, poems, essays, and literary manga from Japan like Monkey Business is worth cherishing for me as someone who has an interest in Japanese culture and literature.

Monkey Business: New Writing from Japan published 7 volumes from 2011 to 2017. In 2020 they rebranded as MONKEY. Both are the English-language brother/sister of the Japanese literary journal MONKEY founded by Motoyuki Shibata, who also is the editor of this volume together with Ted Goossen, one of the leading translators of Japanese fiction. This anthology not only celebrates Japanese literature but also its translators.

This volume, I enjoyed the magic realism in the excerpts from a fictional diary by Sachiko Kishimoto. It was nice to reread the vignettes of People from My Neighborhood by Hiromi Kawakami, one of my favorite Japanese authors. The short story, Itō Returns to Japan and Finds Herself in a Real Pinch by Hiromi Itō, is powerful and entertaining. The narrator must deal with challenges and absurd moments in taking care of her aging mother. The story is the first part of the novel The Thorn Puller, which I’m very interested in reading now.

Like in most collections of short stories, there are a few stories that didn’t work for me. But always grateful for the opportunity and/or to get to read the work by known an unknown authors. Somehow, I always have issues reading collections of short stories by different authors. It creates some sort of cognitive overload after a few stories, and then I must pace myself, which I don’t like to do.

I had a good time reading this volume of Monkey Business!