8 Great Japanese Books in Translation That Aren’t by Haruki Murakami

Out, by Natsuo Kirino (translated by Stephen Snyder)
Written in omniscient-narrator style, with multiple POVs, this book will appeal to fans of Breaking Bad and Quentin Tarantino. It’s smart, darkly comedic, and shockingly violent—but this time, a group of ladies are the ones taking names, leaving body counts, and, well, chopping up the evidence. Meet Masako, Kuniko, Yoshie, and Yayoi, four women who work the midnight to 5:30 a.m. shift at a boxed lunch factory. Respectively, they are the mother of a hikikomori teenage recluse; a materialistic, selfish woman in debt up to her eyelids; a cash-strapped widow caring for an ungrateful mother-in-law; and a young wife seething with resentment toward her abusive, unfaithful husband. Will they get away with murder? And will we root for them or against them?

Chain Mail: Addicted to You, by Hiroshi Ishizaki (translated by Richard Kim)
In this fast-paced YA book filled with twists and turns, a lonely teenage girl named Sawako is immediately intrigued by the subject of an email message: “Would you like to create a fictional world?” Three more teen girls with diverse interests soon join the online game, the objective of which is to co-write a story about a girl, her tutor/boyfriend, her stalker, and the detective who’s tracking the stalker. Each girl assumes the POV and identity of the character she has opted to write. However, at least one of the girls is not who she claims to be, and the story being written may not be mere fantasy. As the rules of the game state, “It’ll seem so real that if anyone who didn’t know what it was read it, it would terrify them.”

All She Was Worth, by Miyuki Miyabe (translated by Alfred Birnbaum)
The first in a popular and critically acclaimed mystery series that has been adapted for TV in Japan, All She Was Worth introduces us to Tokyo Metropolitan Police Inspector Shunsuke Honma, a widower with a 10-year-old son. On medical leave after being shot in the knee, Honma is at loose ends, frustrated and bored, when a distant relation, Jun, shows up begging for help in locating his missing fiancée. Honma’s curiosity gets the better of him, despite the fact that Jun couldn’t be bothered to attend the funeral of Honma’s wife three years ago. The search for Jun’s mysterious fiancée leads Honma down a winding path of stolen identity and murder, with a chilling message about the ways in which consumerism and endless, sky-high debt can destroy entire families.

A Midsummer’s Equation, by Keigo Higashino (translated by Alexander O. Smith)
An internationally bestselling author, Higashino is best known for his Detective Galileo novels. If you like mysteries in which an outsider with a unique profession sheds light on a case, you’ll love A Midsummer’s Equation. While visiting the beautiful but struggling coastal town of Hari Cove during a controversial time in its history (a corporation is destroying the coastline with its hydrothermal ore mining), associate physics professor Manabu Yukawa solves not one but two related murders that occured 16 years apart. The most recent victim is a retired cop, and his former colleagues are determined to bring justice to their fallen brother. Yukama’s attitude says it all: “The world is full of mysteries. And the joy of uncovering even the slightest mystery is incomparable to any other joy you will ever know.”

Kitchen, by Banana Yoshimoto (translated by Megan Backus)
An exquisitely written, ultimately hopeful novel about grief by an author whose prose has been compared to that of Marguerite Dumas and Anne Tyler, this book is slim but absolutely packed with emotion about love and loss. Our main character, Mikage, has lost every member of her family but is welcomed into the affectionate home of a young man, Yuichi, and his transgender mother, Eriko, who runs a gay night club. Mikage teaches herself to cook, and the process becomes a passion, an art, and a lifestyle that helps her work through her pain: “Perhaps because to me a kitchen represents some distant longing engraved on my soul.” Her relationships with Yuichi and Eriko are tender, bittersweet, and unforgettable.

Manazuru, by Hiromi Kawakami (translated by Michael Emmerich)
A breathtaking literary achievement that reminded me at times of Catherine Lacey’s Nobody is Ever Missing, this novel asks the question, “When someone disappears from your life, are they ever really gone?” Twelve years after her beloved husband, Rei, vanishes without warning, Kei finds herself traveling repeatedly to a quiet beach town called Manazuru, where she feels her husband’s presence for reasons she can’t explain. In the decade since he left, she has been raising their daughter, Momo, at her mother’s house, and has taken a lover at work. She has long had the suspicion that she’s being followed, and in Manazuru that sensation rises to a level she can no longer ignore. While contemplating her long-ago courtship with Rei, her daughter’s growth from infant to 9th grader, and her changing relationship with her memories, Kei attempts to come to terms with the course her life has taken. A surreal, deeply moving book.

The Thief, by Fuminori Nakamura (translated by Satoko Izumo and Stephen Coates)
With his mentor gone, his girlfriend dead, and his own days seemingly numbered, a master pickpocket winds his way through the streets of Tokyo, targeting wealthy businessmen. Our antihero with a Robin Hood–style sense of morality takes under his wing a kid who’s forced to shoplift and needs help with technique. But he remains haunted by a home invasion and burglary he participated in that ripped his mentor from him. He spends his nights ruminating on what becomes of a man without societal ties: “I favored action over inaction, the path which would lead me away from the world.” At times the book reads like Albert Camus crossed with Elmore Leonard, yet the narrative voice is distinctly its own, and Nakamura has racked up several awards for his work. Descriptions of sleight of hand paired with philosophical musings make for a terrific read and fascinating exploration of what it means to be a criminal.

The Changeling, by Kenzaburō Ōe (translated by Deborah Boliver Boehm)
Ōe received the Nobel Prize in Literature for this book in 1994. When Kogito’s estranged brother-in-law and childhood best friend, Goro, sends Kogito 40 cassette tapes of himself having a one-sided conversation about their relationship, Kogito listens to them as part of a nightly ritual. Both men make their living in the arts. Goro is a famous actor and filmmaker, Kogito an acclaimed novelist. They haven’t been close in years, and Kogito misses their lengthy talks and former closeness. A particularly chilling remark recorded toward the end of the tapes—”I’m going to head over to the Other Side now” (followed by an ominous thud)—turns out to be the moment Goro has committed suicide. Kogito becomes obsessed with listening to the tapes and responding to them verbally, in an attempt to uncover the reasons behind Goro’s desperate act. Kogito’s internal journey takes him into the past, and the moment their rift widened beyond repair.