Reading East Asia

Dodging the usual Japanese heavyweights (well, mostly) in favour of more esoteric cuts, here are our favourite reads from this most rich of literary areas.

Notes of a Crocodile, by Qui Miaojin

First published in Taiwan in 1994, this fast became a cult novel in both Taiwan and China, and the narrator’s nickname ‘Lazi’ to this day, is still used as slang for Lesbian. Which is to say, this was a very impactful novel-then, and indeed, now. Set in post-martial law Taiwan, it follows the coming of age of a bunch of queer misfits studying at Taiwan’s most prestigious university. It’s a decidedly avant-garde, often hard to follow novel but it is also a deeply moving account of queer friendship, first queer romance, obsession, shame and desire. The blurb labels it a ‘poignant masterpiece’ – a fairly accurate description, I reckon.

I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokbokki, by Baek Sehee

This curio was a runaway bestseller when it was originally published in Korea, and with its impeccable cover design in 3 colour-ways and English translation by Anton Hur (translator of Storysmith favourites such as Love in the Big City and Cursed Bunny), we were instantly intrigued.

Part memoir, part psychological study, I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokbokki presents transcripts from 12 weeks of the author’s therapy sessions during a period of depression. Baek Sehee talks openly with her therapist about her anxieties, the pressure to succeed and feelings of general dissatisfaction and exhaustion involved in living in a society where you are made to reflect on your own actions constantly.

It’s hard to pinpoint why this is such a compulsive read, but the magic of the book, for us, comes from Baek Sehee’s vehement ordinariness. It’s also a rare and incredibly generous insight into a person’s unfiltered thoughts and feelings, an antidote to the polished world of the Instagram persona, and this is what makes it such a comforting and thought-provoking read (and had us googling where we could get tteokbokki in Bristol).

Human Acts by Han Kang

Han Kang rose to prominence in the English-speaking world when The Vegetarian won the Man Booker International Prize. Whether you’ve read The Vegetarian or not (you should!), her other novels are just as brilliant and well worth your time. Human Acts follows characters connected by the aftermath of the Gwangju Uprising in 1980s South Korea. While it’d be a lie to say this isn’t at times a harrowing read, it’s also an ethereal, beautiful, measured argument for the existence of the soul and humanity’s possibility for redemption.

The Man With Compound Eyes, by Wu Ming Yi

Many, many disparate threads (including but not limited to a semi-mythological island society called Wayo-Wayo, a floating archipelago of ocean garbage, mountain tunnel construction, traditional whaling practices, language acquisition) wind their way together to form a richly textured, superbly translated fable of climate change, Taiwanese culture and myth. Heavy dollops of narrative fiction, eco-fiction with a subtle veneer of the supernatural. Delicious! 

Love in the Big City, by Sang Young Park

A portrait of contemporary Korean queer culture that is both celebratory and mournful, ironic and melancholy in equal measure, rendered in a narrative style that brims with personality. Our narrator ricochets between friends, conquests and boyfriends over many years. But Love in the Big City celebrates this multitude of love: platonic, romantic, sexual; idyllic and devastating. Surely destined to become a queer cult classic.

Tower, by Bae Myung-Hoon

Beyond the absolutely exquisite cover, Tower ticks all the boxes. It’s a collection of interconnected science fiction short stories, translated from Korean, all set in the fictional sovereign nation of Beanstalk, a 700-storey mega-skyscraper. It is slapstick, and farcical, and really funny but comes with a good dollop of political commentary. Most of all, Tower strikes that perfect balance that every good collection should: each story stands on its own two legs as a coherent, complete story, while the book as a whole has a narrative strand running through it that makes it read more like a novel. Perfecto!

Where the Wild Ladies Are, by Aoko Matsuda

Witty and melancholy in equal measure, this is a collection of interlinked short stories loosely based around traditional Japanese folktales with a contemporary, feminist twist. A few of the stories begin with a light touch of context, which is exactly the right amount of handholding: you don’t have to have read any Japanese folktales to enjoy this. These are damn good ghost stories in-and-of themselves. If anything, it just makes you want to come back for more.

Winter In Sokcho, by Elisa Shua Dusapin

Anyone who has endured a winter in a town that relies on summer tourism will feel an acute affinity for this wonderful and curious little novel from French-Korean writer Dusapin. We join a directionless guesthouse worker in a North Korean border town by the sea as she shares a beautifully awkward new relationship (if you can call it that) with a visiting French cartoonist. And if you’re a fan of vivid writing about fish, this one’s for you.

Cursed Bunny, by Bora Chung

A collection of genre-defying Korean short stories that jump between the ridiculous and the terrifying. Dive in to find Angela Carter-style fables, body horror, ghost stories and science-fiction. One of our favourites from the last few years and graced one of our Storysmith Books of the Year lists.

Strange Beasts Of China, by Yan Ge

A deliciously and unconventional detective drama that plays out in a fictional city populated in part by the richly described beasts of the title. Each chapter relays the sad history of a different breed of beast, all while the tension in our cryptozoologist hero’s personal story threatens to topple her attempts to catalogue their behaviour.

Breasts & Eggs, by Mieko Kawakami

We’ve been shouting about Breasts & Eggs here at the shop since it was first published in the UK. It’s one of those delightfully compulsive books that makes you want to cancel all plans and hunker down until it’s finished: frankly, we’re a bit obsessed.

The first part of the novel follows Natsu as she welcomes her older sister Makiko and her teenage niece Midoriko to her cramped Tokyo apartment. Midoriko is refusing to speak, and her silence hangs heavily over the family as Makiko obsesses about the breast enhancement surgery that she hopes will transform her ageing body. In the second part we meet Natsu again eight years later. She is working on her second novel, and grappling with the idea of motherhood in a world where she doesn’t fit into the typical mould. With engaging honesty and a dark humour, Kawakami explores objectification, self-obsession and female suffering in a book which has caused something of a stir back in the author’s home country.

It’s a rare insight into female working class lives in Japan, and we loved the frank and progressive discussions about womanhood, parenthood and, perhaps most importantly, the freedom to make up and change our minds about the big questions.

Do Not Say We Have Nothing, by Madeleine Thien

Do Not Say We Have Nothing is both a grand, beautifully realised epic, and an affecting personal tale of one woman’s journey to self-discovery. Thien covers thousands of miles and generations of family history while maintaining a tight focus on a handful of poets, musicians, lovers and revolutionaries–and she almost makes it seem easy!

Diary Of A Mad Old Man, by Junichiro Tanizaki

Tanizaki works incredibly hard to make an at-times reprehensible main character palatable, maybe even loveable, in this troubling and exquisitely strange novel. It is literally a diary of a mad old man, Utsugi, who tells us his most intimate secrets while generally upsetting his family in creatively unpleasant ways, and embarks upon a ill-advised pursuit of his strong-willed and wily daughter-in-law.

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