Here I have the best Japanese novels recommendations for you! Stop and check out!
Beyond sushi and anime, a rich literary world awaits. Dive into timeless tales of love and loss, surreal journeys, and quiet contemplations.
From Murakami's dreamlike landscapes to Kawabata's poetic prose, discover classics and contemporary gems that capture the essence of Japan. Unfurl a page, and prepare to be enchanted.
Which is the best Japanese Novel?
I've read all the best Japanese novels and I found Kafka on the Shore be be the best.
Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami is an extremely engrossing tale about a boy who is a teenager and runs away from home. The story has elements of fantasy, magic realism combined with fiction. It has been translated to various languages like English, Spanish etc.
Best Japanese Novels: Summary
| Best Japanese Novels | Authors | Editor’s Rating |
| The Housekeeper and the Professor | Yoko Ogawa | 4/5 |
| I am a Cat | Soseki Natsume | 3.5/5 |
| Kafka on the Shore | Haruki Murakam | 4.1/5 |
| Out | Natsuo Kirino | 3.8/5 |
| Strange Weather in Tokyo | Hiromi Kawakami | 3.5/5 |
| Snow Country | Yasunari Kawabata | 3.7/5 |
| Kitchen | Banana Yoshimoto | 3.9/5 |
| Rashomon | Ryunosuke Akutagawa | 3.7/5 |
| Convenience Store Woman | Sayaka Murata | 4/5 |
| The Eighth Day | Mitsuyo Kakuta | 3.8/5 |
Best Japanese Novels
All The Lovers in the Night by Meiko Kawakami Review
The acclaimed novel All The Lovers in the Night by Meiko Kawakami is truly a captivating read. This powerful and poetic novel follows teenage Miyako, a girl from a small fishing village with a turbulent home life.
She lives with her mother, who struggles to keep the family afloat after Miyako's father passes away. Amid her hardships, Miyako is able to find escapism in her dreams of becoming a Parisian fashion designer.
Meiko Kawakami takes us on an emotionally wrenching journey as Miyako gradually becomes aware of what it means to face life’s challenges. Through her struggles, Miyako comes to embrace the world, learning that every heartache makes her stronger and wiser.
The reader is exposed to raw emotions of angst and loneliness, but eventually, these feelings are replaced with a sense of peace and understanding that empowers Miyako in her endeavors.
#15 - Mieko Kawakami - All the Lovers in the Night
— jarsh (@jarshzone) February 5, 2023
A book that kinda meanders to illustrate the protagonist’s mundane life, but it’s necessary and leads to an emotional whirlwind near the end. Bittersweet is the best way I can describe it. I should read more Kawakami lol
8/10 pic.twitter.com/Qbb66KDN7K
This poignant novel is a story of perseverance, romanticism and eventual self-love. Our protagonist has to make tough decisions each step of the way, and with each coming of age experience, she grows better equipped to understand the power of life.
All The Lovers in the Night by Meiko Kawakami utilizes literary devices, like poetic dialogue and vivid descriptions, to help illustrate the inner turmoil Miyako experiences.
Kawakami’s excellent use of symbolism adds to the novel’s tenderness and provides a great spectacle for the reader to relish.
Without a doubt, All The Lovers in the Night by Meiko Kawakami is one of the greatest Japanese novels of our generation.
With its exquisite writing, Kawakami paints a vivid image of Miyako's struggles, giving the audience an in-depth understanding of her journey. It is sure to resonate with the readers and make them think twice about perception and self-growth.
“Life Ceremony” by Sayaka Murata
Life Ceremony, Murata's first volume of short stories to appear in English, is likely to startle and impress anglophone readers alike.
The majority of the stories in Life Ceremony are profoundly sinister, far darker and more psychologically challenging than both Earthlings and Convenience Store Woman.
The striking cover art for the book also provides an indication of the content inside – the orange Granta Books edition, sold in the UK, has a tantalizing image of an eyeball wrapped like a hard candy, while the Grove Press edition, available in the U.S. and Canada, pictorializes a character's inner turmoil in detailed imagery.
#5 in my #BooksReadIn2023 is Life Ceremony by Sayaka Murata @sayakamurata tr. by Ginny Tapley Takemori.
— 𝕤𝕒𝕣𝕒𝕙 (@evans_alwin) January 22, 2023
It’s a really vivid collection of short stories which embrace the weird and insert indifference and coolness into the marginal and the taboo. Go and chuck yourself in it. pic.twitter.com/jnQUDtklbA
The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa
The book is translated by Stephen Snyder
When a car accident robs the math ‘professor’ of the ability to remember anything beyond 80 minutes, a ‘housekeeper’ needs to be hired to take care of him.
His memory was as tumbled down as the cottage he lived in, where he spent all day doing math puzzles and every once in a while glancing at his suit that had a note stuck to it: My memory only lasts 80 minutes.
His housekeeper has to introduce herself to him every morning. Accompanying her is her sweet little boy, whom the professor refers to as Root.
This was because his flat headedness reminded him of the symbol of the square root. Even though there isn’t much to remember, the relationship between the three is quite exquisite and heart warming.
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I am a Cat by Soseki Natsume
The book is translated by Aiko Ito and Graeme Wilson
I am a Cat by Soseki Natsume. This cat has never caught a mouse. You’d think its observation and preying skills are bad, but I just think it puts it to good use somewhere else — in being catty.
Residing in the home of an English professor, this nameless feline creature listens to the conversations of the upper-middle-class people from the Meji area.
The book is mostly a sardonic and satirical perspective about the follies, eccentricities, and weaknesses of humans around him.
The narrator, the cat, made it very clear in the first sentence of the book: “I am a cat. As yet I have no name.”
Think of its mockery, in the sense that what humans know about themselves is just as little as what cats know about themselves.
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Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
The book is translated by Philip Gabriel
After I read Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami, I couldn’t quite look at a bottle of Johnnie Walker whiskey with a straight face. Odd?
Yes. Blame it on Murakami. Only someone like him can make it so disturbingly fascinating. It is the best Japanese novels I've ever read.
You’ll experience reading a piece of literature that is far away from the constraints of space and time.
It can be confusing to alternate between Murakami’s multiple concepts at once, but that they boil down to one thing in the end.
In this book, you’ll find that the cats know more than humans, fish fall down from the sky and somehow the protagonist finds a mysterious connection with his teacher from school.
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Out by Natsuo Kirino
The book is translated by Stephen Snyder
Out by Natsuo Kirino. What is a murder mystery if it isn’t topped off with sex and ultra violence. It is even better if the maiming party is a woman. Out is one of the best Japanese novels.
Natsuo Kirino, known as the queen of Japanese crime really blew heads off with this book and in this book. It is one of the best Japanese novels across the globe.
This novel narrates the story of a violent murder that takes place in the suburbs of Tokyo.
The abusive husband had to die at the hands of his wife. The cover-up involved a few co-workers and friends and a constant feeling of dismay.
This is a story about escaping close calls, strained friendships and passing the blame, and of course, solving a crime, or rather, getting away with a crime.
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Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami
The book is translated by Allison Markin Powell
Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami, in the simplest way, paints a portrait of the lives of two people. Tsukiko and Sensei. This book is about an unprecedented meeting of Tsukiko with her old professor from the school, whom she refers to as sensei, at a sake bar.
In the short span of this book, the author slowly unpacks multiple nuances where a chance meet-cute turned into a causal friendship and then transformed into a peculiar kind of romance.
The depiction of the two characters seems as f it is written by two different authors because of how different a person they seem to embody. In this work, Kakakami has outdone herself.
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Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata
The book is translated by Edward Seidensticker
Yasunari Kawabata is one of Japan’s few Nobel prize-winning authors, respected for his skill and admired for his charm.
Snow Country, arguably one of his most beautifully penned books, captures the love between a geisha and a man from Tokyo. The man and the geisha both live in Onsen, a mountainous region.
It has been told that several of the experiences and feelings and the aesthetics encapsulated in this book are from the time he spent on a trip to Yuzawa Onsen in Niigata Prefecture.
As the snow blanketed the whole region, the geisha didn’t remove one invisible blanket of truth. She gave her whole self to him, knowing that it could turn into nothing more than a fleeting affair.
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Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto
The book is translated by Megan Backus
Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto. Kitchen is a novella about grief and loss. The book depicts a very real understanding of the process of grief and it takes over us. She has a gripping sense of mourning and that showed as you turned each page.
Yoshimoto has gone out of her way to avoid any melodrama and pronounced outburst and kept it rather simple.
The muted tone of the novel shows a peek into the lives of someone who has just suffered loss, finds their way and navigates to find love and friendship.
Something about the style and the shortness of the book makes it sympathetic and something you’d want to clutch close to your heart as you flip over the last page.
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Rashomon by Ryunosuke Akutagawa
The book is translated by Takashi Kojima
Rashomon by Ryunosuke Akutagawa. Rashomon is a ruined gate found near Southern Kyoto. The story unfolds as a servant finds himself at the gate of Rashomon facing a dilemma. Whether they should starve to death or fight to survive.
Racked by tumbling thoughts, he stumbles upon a woman at the same gate who has already made her choice.
Without ruining more for you, I’ll tell you this: This is a book about how people change their morals in desperate times, whether it is to fight or to survive.
Akutagawa has written many books, some of which were so brilliant that they decided to name a prize after him: the Akutagawa Prize. Read it and you'll know why it's one of the best Japanese novels.
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Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata
The book is translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori
Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata. An asexual woman in her 30s is hounded about how empty her life must be without a man. This book is about this woman, who for the past eighteen years of her life, loved and thrived at her job as a convenience store clerk.
Every day her friends and family tell her she’s not normal. To get them off her back, she ‘adopts’ a man and invites him to live with her.
The book is written with such passive aggression and sarcasm, it could bite you! Definitely, one of the best Japanese novels
The Eighth Day by Mitsuyo Kakuta
The book is translated by Margaret Mitsutani
The Eighth Day by Mitsuyo Kakuta is one of the best Japanese novels that was only translated in 2010. The woman protagonist of the novel is having an affair with a co-worker who is already married.
She has a lot going on in her life: not only did she suffer an abortion, but she also kidnapped a six-month-old baby of her co-worker.
She escapes with the little baby and seeks refuge in a religious commune. Fifteen years later, the girl baby tries to escape and find her real family.
The most interesting thing about the book is that it has been told from the perspective of both the victim and the kidnapper.
Great Reads from Japan
Here these recommendations of best Japanese novels helped you. Please add these to your to-read list and experience a whole different world when you read them!
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