Sympathy Tower Tokyo by Rie Qudan, translated from the Japanese by Jesse Kirkwood (S&S/Summit Books, September 2) Welcome to the Japan of tomorrow. Here, the practice of radical sympathy toward criminals has become normalized. The incarcerated are considered victims influenced by their environments to commit crime and are labeled accordingly as Homo miserabilis. A grand,
My series on SF in Translation of the early 1960s can be found on the Seattle Worldcon 2025 website. Posts so far include: Fantastic Fiction: Kōbō Abe and Post-War Japanese SFT Fantastic Fiction: Perry Rhodan Fantastic Fiction: Nathalie Henneberg’s Forays into the Strange Fantastic Fiction: SF in Central/Eastern Europe Fantastic Fiction: Stanisław Lem, 1961 Fantastic
The Bewitched Bourgeois: Fifty Stories by Dino Buzzati, translated from the Italian by Lawrence Venuti (NYRB, January 7). In The Bewitched Bourgeois, Lawrence Venuti has put together an anthology that showcases Buzzati’s short fiction from his earliest stories to the ones he wrote in the last months of his life. Some appear in English for
The Full Moon Coffee Shop by Mai Mochizuki, translated from the Japanese by Jesse Kirkwood (Ballantine, August 20) In Japan, cats are a symbol of good luck. As the myth goes, if you are kind to them, they’ll one day return the favor. And if you are kind to the right cat, you might just
Pink Slime by Fernanda Trías, translated from the Spanish by Heather Cleary (Scribner, July 2) In a city ravaged by a mysterious plague, a woman tries to understand why her world is falling apart. An algae bloom has poisoned the previously pristine air that blows in from the sea. Inland, a secretive corporation churns out
“The Rambler” by Shen Dacheng, translated from the Chinese by Cara Healey (Clarkesworld, April 1) The Book Censor’s Library by Bothayna Al-Essa, translated from the Arabic by Ranya Abdelrahman and Sawad Hussain (Restless Books, April 30) A perilous and fantastical satire of banned books, secret libraries, and the looming eye of an all-powerful government. Oracle
I joined Joachim Boaz over at Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations for a double-review of Kōbō Abe’s 1950 (tr. 1989) short story “The Flood.” Check it out here!
“De Profundis, a Space Love Letter” by Bella Han, translated from the Chinese by the author (Clarkesworld, October 1). Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again by Shigeru Kayama, translated from the Japanese by Jeffrey Angles (University of Minnesota Press, October 3). The first English translations of the original novellas about the iconic kaijū Godzilla. On the
NOVELS Kappa by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, translated from the Japanese by Lisa Hofmann-Kuroda and Allison Markin Powell (New Directions, June 6) The Kappa is a creature from Japanese folklore known for dragging unwary toddlers to their deaths in rivers: a scaly, child-sized creature, looking something like a frog, but with a sharp, pointed beak and an
SHORT STORIES “To Helen” by Bella Han, translated from the Chinese by the author (Clarkesworld, June 1). “Matchstick Girl” by Lucas Santana, translated from the Portuguese by H. Pueyo (The Dark, June). NOVELS Kappa by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, translated from the Japanese by Lisa Hofmann-Kuroda and Allison Markin Powell (New Directions, June 6) [reprint] Akutagawa’s Kappa
