There is a blessed pack of books available in English from Japanese translation. The struggle was really about digging through the lists and the classics, to decide the best selection to share with all of you. Japanese is one of the languages that has been most blessed by translators — still not nearly enough, but a blessing nonetheless. It’s a dream, and it means I’ve been careful to leave off the more obvious or mainstream books from this list. Don’t get me wrong, you should read the much-lauded novels by Banana Yoshimoto and Haruki Murakami. But I wanted to really prioritize highlighting contemporaries or classics that casual readers might not know off the top of their heads. You might still recognize the books on my list, but I made sure that there are a good number of new or lesser known books here, so that those who have already dug into Japanese literature will still find a few surprises. So here are 14 must-read books available in English translation: some new, some old. Want more books in translation content? I have lists for you of books in translation from Catalonia, Argentina, France, Mexico, and Central Africa. If you have recommendations or requests for future lists of books in translation, or if you want me to know about a book I might have missed, let me know on Twitter. Content warnings for mention of suicide. Content warnings include bullying, mental health, sexual assault, and mention of death by suicide. Content warning for sexual harassment. Content warnings for animal cruelty and animal death, planning/discussion of violence. Content warnings for suicide, murder, rape, domestic abuse, sexual harassment. Content warnings for suicidal ideation and attempt, animal death, violence, addiction. Content warnings for animal cruelty, bullying, seizures, pedophilia, torture mention. Content warning for abusive relationships, social anxiety. Content warnings for ableism, classism, sexism. Content warnings for alcoholism, ableism, suicide, animal death, sexual assault, age gap, pedophilia, domestic violence, prejudice. Content warnings for classism, bullying. Content warnings for sexual assault, abusive relationship, police brutality, kidnapping and captivity. Content warnings for mentions of rape and suicide, and depictions of gambling addiction, political censorship, death in childbirth. Content warnings for mentions and/or discussion of domestic abuse, sexual assault, child abuse, pedophilia, suicide, cancer, and substance abuse, as well as for transphobia (misgendering) and depiction of sexual harassment.
