Revenge
One of the most pleasant surprises of the literary world in the past few years, at least in my opinion, is the success that Japanese author Yoko Ogawa has seen in the United States. Her breakout, modest hit The Housekeeper and the Professor received national attention and, more anecdotally, was a top-selling book for years ...
>
Latest Review: "Revenge" by Yoko Ogawa
This is the week of Will Eells reviews. In addition to writing about Persona on Tuesday, today he has a piece on Yoko Ogawa’s Revenge, translated from the Japanese by Stephen Snyder and published by Picador. Here’s a bit from his review: One of the most pleasant surprises of the literary world in the past ...
>
Hotel Iris
Reading Hotel Iris, the latest Yoko Ogawa book to be published in English, may be quite a jarring experience for those who have read Ogawa’s last novel, The Housekeeper and the Professor. Although they share a common theme of unconventional love, the two works could not be more dissimilar in tone and atmosphere. The ...
>
Latest Review: "Hotel Iris" by Yoko Ogawa
The “latest addition”: to our “Reviews Section” is a piece by Will Eells on Yoko Ogawa’s Hotel Iris, which is translated from the Japanese by superstar Stephen Snyder and published by Picador. This is the third Ogawa book available in English, and we’ve actually reviewed all three. (I ...
>
The Housekeeper and the Professor
Contemporary Japanese literature is all too easy to stereotype. As far as the American reading public goes, the only books that come out of Japan seem to be under one of three genres. The first is the “bizarre things happening in an otherwise normal setting” in the mold of Haruki Murakami. As one of the most successful ...
>
Latest Review: "The Housekeeper and the Professor" by Yoko Ogawa
Before she left Picador to be an editor at Free Press, Amber Quereshi acquired a few books by Japanese author Yoko Ogawa. The first, The Diving Pool came out last year, The Housekeeper and the Professor is the second and released earlier this spring, and there’s one more in the works. (Can’t remember the title, ...
>
The Diving Pool
I have to admit right upfront that I was disappointed by this book. I had such high hopes based on all the people involved, the fact that it’s a 2008 Reading the World title, the pretty cover (which Picador is plastering everywhere these days), the blurb from Kenzaburo Oe, etc. In the end though, this just simply ...
>