As world travellers, we perhaps shouldn’t be too biased. One thing you learn when travelling the globe is that no country is perfect; every country has its beauty and its problems. However, we can’t lie and say we don’t have a favourite country in the world, and that country is Taiwan. Here are the best …
Willow Heath
Translated from the Mandarin by Darryl Sterk Those of us who read a broad spectrum of world literature in translation often do so in order to broaden our perspectives, understand other cultures’ ways of writing, processing the world, and expressing themselves through art. With Taiwan being one of my favourite countries and cultures, I’ve read …
Translated from the Japanese by Emily Balistrieri Best known as one of Studio Ghibli’s most beloved movies, directed by Hayao Miyazaki back in 2003, Kiki’s Delivery Service, much like Howl’s Moving Castle, began its life as a children’s novel. But while the novel of Howl’s Moving Castle was written by a beloved Welsh author, Kiki …
There is so much beauty, mystery, and excitement to Japanese history and culture. The best books on Japan explore the art, theology, architecture, theatre, and food of Japan. To really understand Japan, it’s vital to get a rounded view of the Land of the Rising Sun by reading the best books on Japanese culture and …
Translated from the Norwegian by Deborah Dawkin Picture yourself in a cabin, alone at the edge of the world, with Norwegian fjords on one side and endless snowy wastes on the other; only the seabirds and thoughts of the family you abandoned for company. Or did you abandon them? Well, you have a lot of …
The full title of Matt Alt’s book is Pure Invention: How Japan’s Pop Culture Conquered the World. And this ambitious title is right on the money in ways that will surprise and delight you, no matter how prepared you feel going in, or how much you already think you know about Pokemon, Gundam, or Hello …
Holiday Heart is a novel that unravels the time and space of a relationship, pulling it apart and making a battlefield of the pieces. It is a novel about the far future of a marriage, nineteen years deep and in tatters. It’s a novel that explores the hows and whys of getting to this place …
Learning Japanese presents a unique issue for most students. Unlike learning another language which also relies on the Roman alphabet (French, German, Spanish etc), Japanese requires you to learn the spoken language, as well as three separate alphabets. Fortunately, two of these three alphabets — hiragana and katakana — can be mastered in an afternoon, …
Translated from the Japanese by Geoffrey Trousselot In a Tokyo café which has stood since the Edo period, there is a chair at the furthest point from the door. Local legend says this chair can transport you back through time as long as you follow a specific list of rules. The legend is true, as …
Many of the best novels of the 20th Century were written by creative and empathetic Black women. And, now, the literary landscape of the 21st Century is all but defined by the words and voices of, and novels by Black women writers. The female Black writers community represents some of the biggest award-winners, some of …