Read Japanese Literature

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 Dec 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 Dec 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

In this episode, we take a look at the history of Koreans writing in Japan. We’ll start with the history of Koreans in Japan, including anti-Korean prejudice before and after WWII. We’ll move on to Za...

3 Juni 202455min

In part three of this episode, we’ll finish our story of Japanese apocalyptic and dystopian fiction. First, stories from the mid-90s and 20-aughts. Then, stories from after the March 2011 Triple Dis...

29 Apr 202456min