Read Japanese Literature

In this episode, we look into the history of Christianity in Japan—especially the role Christianity has played in Japanese literature. Our focus text is Shusaku Endo's Silence. Notes and sources on th...

5 Jun 20251h 1min

In this episode, we take a look at the Japanese proletarian writers’ movement of the 1920s and early 1930s. We also take a deep dive into the life of author Genzaburo Yoshino—not a proletarian writer,...

18 Mar 20251h 3min

For the first time ever, RJL brings you information from an interview with a Japanese author—Akutagawa-winner Keiichiro Hirano. This episode takes up his life and work, the influence of Yukio Mishima ...

5 Feb 202552min

Happy holidays! And, in the interest of today’s episode, merri kurisumasu! Today we’re going to start with the origins of Christmas, especially why Christmas is celebrated in Japan at all. We’ll move...

14 Des 202452min

RJL is excited to bring you this two-parter about LGBTQ+ stories from Japan. Part two covers Taisho Japan (when women finally enter the stage) through through contemporary LGBTQ+ writing, especially t...

1 Des 202457min

RJL is excited to bring you this two-parter about LGBTQ+ stories from Japan. Part one covers some of the earliest writing in Japanese through the end of the Meiji Period in 1912. Part two (coming soo...

30 Okt 202454min

Today, we’re talking about crime and mystery novels from Japan. We’ll start with the development of the crime and mystery genre in the English-speaking world. We’ll move on to Japanese crime and myste...

13 Sep 202453min

This episode is marked mature. In this episode, we take a look at Japanese writing about the American bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that killed as many as 215,000 people in August 1945. We’ll st...

17 Aug 202459min