Tales of Japan

Tales of Japan
Author: Chronicle Books
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Total Pages: 173
Release: 2019-06-18
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1452174539

A goblin with no body and a monster with no face. A resourceful samurai and a faithful daughter. A spirit of the moon and a dragon king. This collection of 15 traditional Japanese folktales transports readers to a time of adventure and enchantment. Drawn from the works of folklorists Lafcadio Hearn and Yei Theodora Ozaki, these tales are by turns terrifying, exhilarating, and poetic. • Striking illustrations by contemporary Japanese artist Kotaro Chiba • Special gift edition features an embossed, textured case with metallic gold ink, and a satin ribbon page marker • Part of the popular Tales series, featuring Nordic Tales, Celtic Tales, Tales of India, and Tales of East Africa Fans of Ghostly Tales, and Japanese Notebooks will love this book. This book is ideal for: • Fans of fairytales, folklore, ghost stories, Greek mythology, roman mythology, Chinese mythology, and Celtic mythology • Anyone interested in Japan's history books and culture studies • People of Japanese heritage • Collectors of illustrated classics

Japan Story

Japan Story
Author: Christopher Harding
Publisher: Penguin Books Limited
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2019
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780141985374

This is a fresh and surprising account of Japan's culture from the 'opening up' of the country in the mid-nineteenth century to the present. 'How much I admired it, what a lot I learned from it and, above all, how very much I enjoyed it ... Masterly.' Neil MacGregor It is told through the eyes of people who greeted this change not with the confidence and grasping ambition of Japan's modernizers and nationalists, but with resistance, conflict, distress. We encounter writers of dramas, ghost stories and crime novels where modernity itself is the tragedy, the ghoul and the bad guy; surrealist and avant-garde artists sketching their escape; rebel kamikaze pilots and the put-upon urban poor; hypnotists and gangsters; men in desperate search of the eternal feminine and feminists in search of something more than state-sanctioned subservience; Buddhists without morals; Marxist terror groups; couches full to bursting with the psychological fall-out of breakneck modernization. These people all sprang from the soil of modern Japan, but their personalities and projects failed to fit. They were 'dark blossoms': both East-West hybrids and home-grown varieties that wreathed, probed and sometimes penetrated the new structures of mainstream Japan.

Japanese Stories for Language Learners

Japanese Stories for Language Learners
Author: Anne McNulty
Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
Total Pages: 197
Release: 2018-11-20
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 1462920128

A great story can lead a reader on a journey of discovery—especially if it's presented in two languages! Beautifully illustrated in a traditional style, Japanese Stories for Language Learners offers five compelling stories with English and Japanese language versions appearing on facing pages. Taking learners on an exciting cultural and linguistic journey, each story is followed by detailed translator's notes, Japanese vocabulary lists, and grammar points along with a set of discussion questions and exercises. The first two stories are very famous traditional Japanese folktales: Urashima Taro (Tale of a Fisherman) and Yuki Onna (The Snow Woman). These are followed by three short stories by notable 20th century authors: Kumo no Ito (The Spider's Thread) by Akutagawa Ryunosuke (1892-1927) Oborekaketa Kyodai (The Siblings Who Almost Drowned) by Arishima Takeo (1878-1923) Serohiki no Goshu (Gauche the Cellist) by Miyazawa Kenji (1896-1933) Reading these stories in the original Japanese script--and hearing native-speakers read them aloud in the accompanying free audio recording--helps students at every level deepen their comprehension of the beauty and subtlety of the Japanese language. Learn Japanese the fun way—through the country's rich literary history.

All About Japan

All About Japan
Author: Willamarie Moore
Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
Total Pages: 64
Release: 2013-09-03
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 1462906249

**2012 Creative Child Magazine Preferred Choice Award Winner!** A cultural adventure for kids, All About Japan offers a journey to a new place—and ways to bring it to life! Dive into stories, play some games from Japan, learn some Japanese songs. Two friends, a boy from the country and a girl from the city, take us on a tour of their beloved land through their eyes. They introduce us to their homes, families, favorite places, school life, holidays and more! Celebrate the cherry blossom festival Learn traditional Japanese songs and poems Make easy recipes like mochi (New Year's sweet rice cakes) and okonomiyaki (Japanese pizza or pancakes) Create origami frogs, samurai helmets and more! Beyond the fun and fascinating facts, you'll also learn about the spirit that makes Japan one-of-a-kind. This is a multicultural children's book for families to treasure together.

A History of Modern Japan

A History of Modern Japan
Author: Christopher Harding
Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
Total Pages: 516
Release: 2020-06-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 1462922511

"Lucid and lyrical…a vivid history of Japan's turbocharged (and painful) modernization." --The Daily Telegraph In A History of Modern Japan, cultural historian Christopher Harding delves into the untold stories of Japan's recent history--from a pop star's nuclear power protest song in 2011, to Japanese feminists who fought for an equal political voice in the 1890s. Though highly successful, and typically portrayed as a unified effort, Japan's rebuilding throughout the 20th century faced a lot of domestic criticism. This story-led account gives a voice to those who felt they didn't fit in with what Japan was becoming. It's that push and pull that made the country what it is today. This book will be a fascinating read for anyone interested in Japanese culture--whether film and literature, or pop culture and manga--as big shifts in Japanese ideology and society tend to come from culture and the arts, rather than being politically-driven. It will also be of interest to those traveling to Japan who want a better sense of the place, or anyone seeking to better understand Japan's role on the global stage. With over 100 photographs, maps and prints, A History of Modern Japan showcases the compelling story of Japan's amazing growth and its resulting struggles. For all the country's advancement, the Japanese people continue to wrestle with the notion of what it means to be Japanese in a changing world.

Japanese Fairy Tales

Japanese Fairy Tales
Author: Yei Theodora Ozaki
Publisher: Lulu.com
Total Pages: 190
Release: 2017-07-12
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1387097458

This collection of Japanese fairy tales is the outcome of a suggestion made to me indirectly through a friend by Mr. Andrew Lang. They have been translated from the modern version written by Sadanami Sanjin. These stories are not literal translations, and though the Japanese story and all quaint Japanese expressions have been faithfully preserved, they have been told more with the view to interest young readers of the West than the technical student of folk-lore.... In telling these stories in English I have followed my fancy in adding such touches of local color or description as they seemed to need or as pleased me, and in one or two instances I have gathered in an incident from another version. At all times, among my friends, both young and old, English or American, I have always found eager listeners to the beautiful legends and fairy tales of Japan, and in telling them I have also found that they were still unknown to the vast majority...

Seven Demon Stories from Medieval Japan

Seven Demon Stories from Medieval Japan
Author: Noriko T. Reider
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
Total Pages: 307
Release: 2016-10-03
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1607324903

In Japanese culture, oni are ubiquitous supernatural creatures who play important roles in literature, lore, and folk belief. Characteristically ambiguous, they have been great and small, mischievous and dangerous, and ugly and beautiful over their long history. Here, author Noriko Reider presents seven oni stories from medieval Japan in full and translated for an English-speaking audience. Reider, concordant with many scholars of Japanese cultural studies, argues that to study oni is to study humanity. These tales are from an era in which many new oni stories appeared for the purpose of both entertainment and moral/religious edification and for which oni were particularly important, as they were perceived to be living entities. They reflect not only the worldview of medieval Japan but also themes that inform twenty-first-century Japanese pop and vernacular culture, including literature, manga, film, and anime. With each translation, Reider includes an introductory essay exploring the historical and cultural importance of the characters and oni manifestations within this period. Offering new insights into and interpretations of not only the stories therein but also the entire genre of Japanese ghost stories, Seven Demon Stories is a valuable companion to Reider’s 2010 volume Japanese Demon Lore. It will be of significant value to folklore scholars as well as students of Japanese culture.

The Oxford Book of Japanese Short Stories

The Oxford Book of Japanese Short Stories
Author: Theodore William Goossen
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 486
Release: 2002
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0192803727

Beginning with the first writings to assimilate and rework Western literary traditions, through the flourishing of the short story genre in the cosmopolitan atmosphere of the Taisho era, to the new breed of writers produced under the constraints of literary censorship, and the current writings reflecting the pitfalls and paradoxes of modern life, this anthology offers a stimulating survey of the entire development of the Japanese short story.

Ame Goes to Japan

Ame Goes to Japan
Author: Mami Bacera
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2020-06-05
Genre:
ISBN: 9781952343032

Ame the Cat travels back to the country of his birth, Japan.

Victory Over Japan

Victory Over Japan
Author: Ellen Gilchrist
Publisher: Diversion Books
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2014-01-17
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1940941148

Originally published in 1984, this collection of 14 short stories set in Arkansas and Mississippi went on to win that year’s National Book Award for fiction, confirming Ellen Gilchrist’s place as one of the preeminent literary talents of her generation. Victory Over Japan takes us into the lives of an unforgettable group of Southern women — beautiful, complicated, enchanting, and sometimes dangerous — in and out of bars, marriages, divorces, lovers' arms, and even earthquakes, in an attempt to find happiness, or at least some satisfaction. Throughout these stories, one hears echoes of Flannery O'Connor and Eudora Welty, but Ms. Gilchrist has her own unique literary voice, and it is outrageously funny, moving, tragic, and always appealing. PRAISE: “To say that Ellen Gilchrist can write is to say that Placido Domingo can sing. All you need to do is listen.” —Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post “She is what they call a natural, writing with passion, authority and a noticeable lack of the self-consciousness that weighs down much of contemporary fiction.” —San Francisco Examiner-Chronicle “Ellen Gilchrist’s achievement is to create lives which refuse to be bound on the page by words and sentences . . . the writing is full of understanding that doesn’t advertise itself as perception or insight.” —London Daily Telegraph