A few years ago I was working in the games industry and had a bit of a crossroads in my career, and ended up in the alps for a while to figure out what I wanted. I asked all of my friend group at work to give me authors from their country that they loved so I could read while I was away, and my Korean and Japanese friends came through in a major way. Reading is essentially my only media consumption now that I've left the gaming industry and so the last few years I've read almost every book I could get my hands on by an Asian author, and in particular women from the area. I thought I would lay out some of my favorite authors since there it can be easy to overlook things when you've got seemingly millions of options. I think going by book instead of author would make the list too long since I've enjoyed reading a lot since I've started reading these authors.
Shoutout as well to The Asian Review of Books for context and a constant stream when I start to lose sight of things. Also, it can be helpful to discover writers by simply following translators of works such as people like Janet Hong, Sam Bett, or David Boyd.
The list isn't sorted by any metric.
- Yoko Ogawa
I liked The Memory Police most, and it's also the one you're most likely to know about. I read everything that is translated from her though, and I've not been disappointed at all. It's not always the exact setting or style I normally vibe with the most, but I think my favorite authors are the ones that give me something I generally don't like but in a way that I really enjoy.
- Hiromi Kawakami
I'm less hyped by her entire body of work, and more about a couple titles that I really enjoyed. I would say most of her writing has been a solid 7/10 type of experience, but Under The Eye Of The Big Bird and Strange Weather In Tokyo were really good. Big Bird in particular was a book I wanted to read over again as soon as I finished. I think its a perfection of what she attempted with People From My Neighborhood, but in a very different setting.
- Riku Onda
She's probably my favorite or maybe in a three way tie for favorite with a couple of authors coming later in the list. She only has three books translated, but each of them are incredible in their own way. I'll run out of space if write in detail at all, but I very much encourage you to read any of them. If you like mysteries, Fish Swimming In Dappled Sunlight is a lot of fun and Honeybees And Distant Thunder is the only novel I've purchased over the last three years because I read it so much.
- Mieko Kawakami
One of the other writers in my big three I mentioned above. Everything I've read of her has been impactful in a way I really look for in novels, and that is finding a new pathway for empathy. She gets incredibly deep into the minds of people, and often exposes people who have jumped into rabbit holes that I could never experience because of my race and gender. Like, I never would have guessed that some people dislike their own darker nipples enough to go through a painful process to essentially bleach them though of course it makes sense when you think about everything else relating to "beauty". She is incredible at shining lights on things.
- Keum Suk Gendry-Kim
I don't tend to read a lot of non-fiction, but I love when people are telling histories that are somewhat personal. They've written a series of graphics novels about the recent-ish history of Korea, and how it has affected people in the current generations.
- Hiroko Oyamada
What I love about these few translated books are that they are all just slightly strange in some way. I feel I am looking at something out of focus, off-center, and unfocused. It doesn't feel dangerous, but I honestly have no idea what is going on down there – this sort of feeling. There is an amount of comedy to keep things feeling light when the book is tense, like Weasels In the Attic, but other times you just get absurd situations instead which keep things from taking you in any weird directions.
- Minae Mizumura
These are memoir types of novels (i-novels) about a sort of immigrant experience at a certain time and place, and how that evolved. As an immigrant myself who will continue to be on the rest of my life, the feeling of isolation and the complex feelings about your home country resonated heavily with me. The writing is incredible, and while I wouldn't read them all back to back, I would recommend all of her writing. They are linked and so at certain points you'll hear more about some characters than others even if they were important in other parts of other novels.
- Banana Yoshimoto
She is a pretty popular novelist that I would imagine a lot of people have read here. Kitchen is really great, but my favorite is Goodbye Tsugumi. I gave my friend this book and a notebook with all of my thoughts inside of it, and she gave it back with not only her thoughts but also all of my friends as well. So I might have a bias, but I really think everything I've read of hers has been great and so I would encourage everyone to jump into her at any point of her catalog. She is the last of my big three, but is firmly in the number three spot.
These are all authors who have written many things you can jump into that I think would all be great. In order to make this post longer, I am going to add a list of all of the one-off translations that were done. I won't add anything that I didn't find impactful though:
- Fumio Yamamoto: the Dilemmas of Working Women
- Masashi Matsuie : The Summer House
- Cho-nam Joo : Miss Kim Knows
- Seon-Rae Cheon : The Midnight Shift
- Nanae Aoyama : A Perfect Day To Be Alone
- Mieko Kanai : Mild Vertigo (stream of consciousness writing – as a warning)
- Won-Pyung Sohn : Counterattacks At Thirty
- Xi Xi : Mourning A Breast
- Thuan : Elevator In Sai Gon
- Suzumi Suzuik : Gifted
- Maki Kashimada : Love At Six Thousand Degrees
- Xiaolu Guo : Lovers Discourse
- Kiyoko Murata : A Woman Of Pleasure
- Dolki Min : Walking Practice
- Kikuko Tsumura : There is no such thing as an easy job
Shoutout to people that I don't jive with so much, but are still worth knowing:
- Sayaka Murata
- Yoko Towada
- Kenzaburo Oe
- Fuminori Nakamura
- Yukio Mishima
- Kyung Sook Shin
by TugboatThomas