Monkey New Writing from Japan - by Ted Goossen & Motoyuki Shibata (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

For fans of Japanese literature (Haruki Murakami and more) and readers who want to be introduced to exciting new writers.

MONKEY New Writing from Japan is an annual anthology that showcases the best of contemporary Japanese literature. Volume 4 celebrates MUSIC, as we welcome the post-pandemic flourishing of artistic expression. MONKEY offers short fiction and poetry by writers such as Hideo Furukawa, Mieko Kawakami, Haruki Murakami, Hiromi Kawakami, Aoko Matsuda, and Hiroko Oyamada; graphic stories by Satoshi Kitamura; new translations of modern classics; and contributions from American authors Stuart Dybek, Kevin Brockmeier, and more.

Review Quotes

"MONKEY is more fun than anything called literature has a right to be. Some of the most imaginative writing in the world just so happens to hail from Japan."

--Roland Kelts, Nikkei Asia

"An astonishment, by turns playful and profound"

--Junot Diaz, author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

"MONKEY is full of deep, funny, wild, scary, fabulous, moving, surprising, brilliant work."

--Laird Hunt, author of Neverhome

"A sampler of Japanese literature in translation that gives you tastes of varied, sumptuous flavors."

--Eric Margolis, Tokyo Weekender

"MONKEY is the coolest magazine in the world. It has the coolest new and classic Japanese writers, and some extremely cool English-language writers too. Its graphics are also extremely cool. Whether you read MONKEY in Japanese or in English, you will be, at least for the duration of your reading, quite cool too."

--Rebecca Brown, author of The Gifts of the Body

About the Author

Ted Goossen is a literary translator, professor emeritus at York University in Toronto, and one of the founding editors of Monkey Business and MONKEY New Writing from Japan. He is the editor of The Oxford Book of Japanese Short Stories. He translated Haruki Murakami's Wind/Pinball and The Strange Library, and co-translated (with Philip Gabriel) Men Without Women and Killing Commendatore. His translations of Hiromi Kawakami's People from My Neighborhood and Naoya Shiga's Reconciliation were published in 2020. His translation of the story collection Dragon Palace by Hiromi Kawakami was published under the MONKEY imprint with Stone Bridge Press in 2023.

Motoyuki Shibata translates American literature and runs the Japanese literary journal MONKEY. He has translated Paul Auster, Rebecca Brown, Stuart Dybek, Steve Erickson, Brian Evenson, Laird Hunt, Kelly Link, Steven Millhauser, and Richard Powers, among others. His translation of Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was a bestseller in Japan in 2018. His recent translations include Eric McCormack's Cloud and Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels. He is professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo.