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You are here: Home / Archives for Japanese

Yuki-Onna and Other Stories – Arcturus Classics by Lafcadio Hearn

February 15, 2022 By achuka Leave a Comment

ACHUKA Book of the Day 16 Feb 2022

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Haunting, mysterious and beautiful, but also possessed of unimaginable power and the capacity for terrifying cruelty, the ghosts of Lafcadio Hearn’s fiction draw their inspiration from the folklore of ancient Japan. These ghoulish beings range from spectral brides to vengeful phantoms and unruly goblins.

This collection includes such  tales as “Ingwa-Banashi”, “The Corpse-Rider” and “Of a Promise Broken”.

Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904) was born in the Ionian Islands in Greece. As a child he moved first to Ireland and then to the United States where he worked as a journalist. Increasingly disenchanted with western society, he moved to Japan, where he married. There too he became disenchanted and complained about the loss of Japanese culture after the Meiji Restoration. He spent his life attempting to document the culture he loved in both fiction and carefully researched non-fiction studies.

ABOUT THE SERIES: The Arcturus Classics series brings together high-quality paperback editions of classics works, presented with contemporary graphic cover designs. Together they make a  collection which is perfect for any home library.

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Filed Under: BookOfTheDay, Classics Tagged With: folklore, ghost stories, ghosts, horror, Japan, Japanese

Temple Alley Summer by Sachiko Kashiwaba ill. Miho Satake tr. Avery Fischer Udagawa

January 31, 2022 By achuka Leave a Comment

ACHUKA Book of the Day 31 Jan 2022
2022 Batchelder Award Winner

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“This imaginative tale, enchantingly written and charmingly illustrated by veteran Japanese creators for young people, has a timeless feel. Its captivating blend of humor and mystery is undergirded with real substance that will provoke deeper contemplation. Udagawa’s translation naturally and seamlessly renders the text completely accessible to non-Japanese readers. An instant classic filled with supernatural intrigue and real-world friendship.” KIRKUS
“In recent years, children’s and young adult fiction have increasingly focused on bleak and dystopic futures, where characters often face nearly insurmountable hurdles and their hard-won victories often feel bittersweet. Temple Alley Summer is a refreshing break from all that, operating on the dreamy and poetic logic of magic realism. The lack of any pop culture references adds a semi-timeless quality to the tale, set in a world where adults can still learn from their mistakes, where kindness and compassion can work the strangest miracles, and where everyone gets a second chance if they believe in themselves.” Strange Horizons
“[The] story-within-a-story is really the key of Temple Alley Summer. It reads more like a Western fairytale than the story of a Japanese elementary schooler. The narrative voice is also completely different from Kazu’s, an impressive feat by Kashiwaba and translator Avery Fischer Udagawa.” Asian Review of Books

The Batchelder Award* is given to the most outstanding children’s book originating in a language other than English in a country other than the United States, and subsequently translated into English for publication in the United States. The novel was published in the UK last summer but it has taken this award to bring it to ACHUKA’s attention.

From the writer of The Mysterious Village Veiled in Mist, said to have influenced Hayao Miyazaki’s film Spirited Away, comes this fantastical and mysterious adventure filled with the living dead, a magical pearl, and a suspiciously nosy black cat named Kiriko.  The book is beautifully illustrated by Miho Satake.

Kazu knows something odd is going on when — while receiving himself out of an open window — he sees a girl in a white kimono sneak out of his house in the middle of the night. Was he dreaming? Did he see a ghost? Things get even stranger when he shows up to school the next day to see the very same figure sitting in his classroom. No one else thinks it’s weird, and, even though Kazu doesn’t remember ever seeing her before, they all seem convinced that the ghost-girl Akari has been their friend for years!

When Kazu’s summer project to learn about Kimyo Temple draws the meddling attention of his mysterious neighbor Ms. Minakami and his secretive new classmate Akari, Kazu soon learns that not everything is as it seems in his hometown. Kazu discovers that Kimyo Temple is linked to a long forgotten legend about bringing the dead to life, which could explain Akari’s sudden appearance―is she a zombie or a ghost? Kazu and Akari join forces to find and protect the source of the temple’s power. An unfinished story in a magazine from Akari’s youth might just hold the key to keeping Akari in the world of the living, and it’s up to them to find the story’s ending and solve the mystery as the adults around them conspire to stop them from finding the truth.

*Five Batchelder Honor Books also were selected: Coffee, Rabbit, Snowdrop, Lost ; In the Meadow of Fantasies; The Most Beautiful Story”; Sato the Rabbit; The Sea-Ringed World: Sacred Stories of the Americas.

 

Filed Under: BookOfTheDay, Fiction, In Translation Tagged With: Japanese, MG, middle-grade, translation

Sato the Rabbit by Yuki Ainoya tr. Michael & Shizuka Blaskowsky

April 4, 2021 By achuka Leave a Comment

ACHUKA Book of the Day 5 Apr 2021

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“In lushly painted, highly immersive vignettes, we’re shown that while Sato wears a costume, his sensory nature has been transformed. The taste of watermelon spreads throughout his body. He cracks a walnut and finds rooms inside. He plucks a cloud from a puddle’s reflection and hangs it over his bed, where he ‘sips stories’ from melted multicolored ice containing the emotions of a fully lived and dreamed life.” NEW YORK TIMES
“Sweet, surreal and contemplative.” KIRKUS
“In a set of seven small vignettes that span the seasons, Sato’s daily activities — watering the garden, doing the laundry, splashing in puddles — turn into magic. Cracking open a walnut reveals an inviting miniature world. Eating a watermelon turns into a seafaring adventure. (“Nothing compares to eating watermelon on the sea.”) Observing a meteor shower leads to a star-collection mission. Paintings in a naive style burst with saturated color — watermelon red, night-sky blue, spring chartreuse.” HORN BOOK

“One day, Haneru Sato became a rabbit. He’s been a rabbit ever since.” With these surrealist, yet matter-of-fact opening lines, we are transported to a world very much like our own, yet one that is imbued with an added dimension of wonder and curiosity. In Sato’s world, ordinary objects and everyday routines can lead to magical encounters: a rain puddle, reflecting the sky, becomes a window that can be opened and peered through. A walnut is cracked open to reveal a tiny home, complete with a bathtub and a comfy bed. During a meteor shower, Sato catches stars in a net, illuminating the path home for a family taking an evening walk. This whimsical tale is the first in a trilogy from Japan.

 

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Yuki Ainoya is Japanese and studied  painting at the Tama Art University Faculty of Art and Design. She was the winner of the the Crayon House Children’s Book Grand Prize in 1990 and the 12th Japanese Children’s Book Award in 2007 for the original Japanese edition of this book.

This translated version is published by Enchanted Lion Books, an independent children’s book publisher based in Brooklyn, New York publishing illustrated books from around the world.

A fascinating and richly illustrated discussion with the book’s translating team:
Part One
Part Two

Filed Under: Blog, BookOfTheDay, Books, Illustrated Tagged With: Japanese, surreal, translation

Children’s author Miyoko Matsutani dies at 89

March 9, 2015 By achuka Leave a Comment

Author of children’s books Miyoko Matsutani died Feb. 28 of natural causes at a Tokyo hospital, her family said Monday. She was 89.

Among her works was “Tatsunoko Taro” (“Taro the Dragon Boy”), a fairy tale published in 1960 and later made into an animated film and adapted for the stage.

She also wrote the best-selling “Chiisai Momo-chan” (“Little Momo”) series, based on her parenting experience, starting in 1964.

via Children's author Miyoko Matsutani dies at 89 | The Japan Times.

Filed Under: Blog, Books Tagged With: death, Japan, Japanese, notice

June 6, 2013 By achuka Leave a Comment

egmont

Egmont Press has acquired a new fantasy adventure series set in modern Japan for readers of 9+. Sword of Kuromori is by debut author Jason Rohan.

Stella Paskins, Fiction Publisher at Egmont Press, pre-empted World rights in a three-book, six-figure sum deal from Anne Clark at Anne Clark Literary Agency. The first title in the series will publish in May 2014 and will be a lead title on Egmont’s list.

“I am massively excited about Sword of Kuromori,” commented Stella Paskins. “Jason’s mix of page-turning action with smart dialogue and sparkling characters is brilliant. The fusion of hi-tech and ancient myth works really well and readers are going to devour this world of breathtaking battles and exotic monsters.”

Jason Rohan said, “As a long time admirer of Japanese culture, I’m honoured and thrilled to be bringing this rich and vibrant folklore to a wider audience. I’m also humbled by the faith that Stella and the Egmont team have placed in me by committing to three novels, and I can’t wait to see what ideas the design team come up with, given the wealth of source material.”

Jason Rohan has worked as a staff writer for Marvel Comics in New York and as an English teacher in Japan, where he lived for five years. He returned to the UK and now lives in West London with his wife and five children.

https://www.achuka.co.uk/blog/819/

Filed Under: Blog, Books Tagged With: deals, Egmont, fantasy, fiction, Japan, Japanese

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