Yuriko Miyamoto was a writer and social activist associated with both the proletarian fiction and women's liberation movements. (She even spent time in prison before the Pacific War for her political views.) Much of her work is autobiographical and centers war, class, or gender. #witmonth

Read Japanese Literature@readjapaneseliterature.com · 5d ago

#womenintranslationmonth begins August 1, and RJL is psyched! Every day in August, we'll be posting a short bio of a Japanese woman writer* who takes up feminist themes in her stories. Stay tuned for an August episode on Japanese Women Writers.* readjapaneseliterature.com/Book+lists/J...

A #WITMonth treat: Japan-set mystery MURDER AT THE END OF THE WORLD by AKANE ARAKI (translated by Jesse Kirkwood), @pushkinpress-us.bsky.social's Vertigo imprint brings prize-winning to Anglophones #Booksky expendablemudge.blogspot.com/2026/08/murd...

MURDER AT THE END OF THE WORLD, Pushkin Vertigo brings prize-winning debut Japanese mystery to Anglophones

MURDER AT THE END OF THE WORLD AKANE ARAKI (tr. Jesse Kirkwood) Pushkin Vertigo ( non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) $13.99 ebook, ava...

expendablemudge.blogspot.com

Free #witmonth story via @grantamag.bsky.social: "An Unnecessary Man" by Maha Harada (1962- ) (translated by @louisehk.bsky.social) “The package arrived about a month after my father had passed away..."

An Unnecessary Man

‘I’d lived for half a century, but I had no sense of what that meant; no particular reaction.’ Translated from the Japanese by Louise Heal Kawai.

granta.com

Finished MASKS by Fumiko Enchi, tr. Juliet Winters Carpenter as my 2nd #WITmonth #WomenInTranslation read. Okay this book unravels a series of interlocking love triangles with hints at lesbianism, incestuous closeness, intergenerational obsessions and i dunno what else.

"I waited. To hear words spoken in a once-universal language now on the brink of death. For the voice that had taught me the joy of yearning, and the pain of pining." - When the Museum is Closed by Emi Yagi #BookSky #BookQuote #WITMonth

Carrie@onekdramamomma.bsky.social · yesterday

Time for another read for #WITMonth. Starting this one today. #BookSky 💙📚

Chiyo Uno was a kimono designer as well as an author. In the 1920s, she embodied the free-spirited moga ("modern girl") lifestyle, wearing Western clothes, adopting a bobbed hairstyle, and associating with Japan's writers, poets, and painters. #witmonth

Read Japanese Literature@readjapaneseliterature.com · 5d ago

#womenintranslationmonth begins August 1, and RJL is psyched! Every day in August, we'll be posting a short bio of a Japanese woman writer* who takes up feminist themes in her stories. Stay tuned for an August episode on Japanese Women Writers.* readjapaneseliterature.com/Book+lists/J...

Happy N American release day to Akane Araki's Murder at the End of the World (trans Jesse Kirkwood). A meteor is on a collision course with Earth. The entire human race has 3 months to live. Why would a serial killer begin work?

Murder at the End of the World

An unlikely duo embarks on a road trip to find a serial killer before the apocalypse in this prize-winning Japanese murder mystery.Perfectly blends the dystopian humor of Zombieland and the thrills of...

bookshop.org

Happy N American release day to Chuya Nakahara's Angel at the Earth's Extreme (trans Jeffrey Angles). "Nakahara Chuya lived only to age thirty yet ranks among the finest of Japanese poets, evoking in his work the alienation, ennui, and romantic melancholy of a changing world."

Angel at the Earth's Extreme: Collected Poems

The intensely confessional work of Japan’s most famous modernist poet, considered the Japanese Rimbaud, whose poems have inspired cultlike devotion—especially among fans of the hit anime show Bungo St...

bookshop.org

Free #witmonth story via Asymptote: "Eternal Children" by Satomi Hara (trans Toshiya Kamei) "Out of habit, I hesitated to peek outside. If somebody found out I was still awake, I’d get into serious trouble. But I decided to peek outside anyway..."

Translation Tuesday: “Eternal Children” by Satomi Hara - Asymptote Blog

My cells would be cared for and fed to form another human being. Eventually, they would attend school and grow into components forming the system.

asymptotejournal.com

Time for another read for #WITMonth. Starting this one today. #BookSky 💙📚

Just discovered #WITMonth and just happened to be falling under the spell of Genji. #booksky

Just a reminder, even as we celebrate #WITmonth, that September is #WorldKidLitMonth! #Translators, send us your readings from translated children's and YA books, poetry, or plays and we'll be delighted to feature you. Full guidelines available on our website: translatorsaloud.com/submissions/

Another #witmonth -appropriate old podcast episode finally has a transcript! Post-bubble Japan. The history of socially-conscious Japanese literature. Yu Miri and her novel Tokyo Ueno Station (trans Morgan Giles).

By Your Side: The First 100 Years of Yuri Anime and Manga is a solid NF choice to learn about Japanese women’s writing for #witmonth. 🥰 www.yuricon.com/product/bys/

By Your Side: The First 100 Years of Yuri Anime and Manga

The Untold Story of Lesbian Love in Japanese Animation and Comics. Erica Friedman has been writing and speaking about Yuri anime and manga for 20 years. This book is a collection of her essays, lec…

yuricon.com

Erica Friedman@okazu.yuricon.com · yesterday

If you won't be at Anime NYC, you can still get my book at booksellers online and a store near you. (And, if that store near you is Edgewater Mitsuwa, you might find a signed copy!)

Starting off #WITmonth with some Yoko Tawada. Scattered All Over the Earth was an enjoyable reread, and now I get to dig into the rest of the trilogy.

Every Obon, Japan’s ancestral spirits return home. They're guided by tiny fires and carried on cucumber horses🥒. This year, for the first time, I’m responsible for preparing my father-in-law’s family altar. So I'm getting my learn on. Join me in this episode for cauldron lids (in hell), ...

I saw someone post about "Japanese Women in Translation" on Instagram and included Uketsu. I don't want to get involved in "discourse" but, folks, Uketsu is not a woman.

Japanese flash fiction for #witmonth 💕

Shopping for #WITMonth picks and want to support English translations of experimental Icelandic poetry at the same time? >> bookshop.org/lists/transl... << Also, I recommended the sequel to Kiki's Delivery Service, so if you haven't ordered a copy yet 🐈‍⬛🧹

Translators Recommend: A Women+ in Translation Month Reading List

August is Women in Translation Month! Started by Meytal Radzinski in 2014, WiT Month is an annual celebration of women writers around the world, here expanded (hence the +) to include trans and nonbin...

bookshop.org

Free #witmonth story via Monkey: "The Smartphones Aren't There Yet" by Kaori Fujino (translated by Laurel Taylor) “I had important plans that afternoon, so I took the train. I don’t normally take that line, though I’d ridden it several times before."

Nobuko Yoshiya wrote stories for girls about romantic friendships. She defied the gender norms of the day by dressing in a way that wasn’t clearly male or female. She also publicly shared a 50-year relationship with Chiyo Monma, a female math teacher from a Tokyo girls’ school. #witmonth

Read Japanese Literature@readjapaneseliterature.com · 5d ago

#womenintranslationmonth begins August 1, and RJL is psyched! Every day in August, we'll be posting a short bio of a Japanese woman writer* who takes up feminist themes in her stories. Stay tuned for an August episode on Japanese Women Writers.* readjapaneseliterature.com/Book+lists/J...

First book read for #witmonth After a slow start, I really enjoyed this novel about the relationship between an author and translator, cultural differences, colonialism and unconscious bias. Inventive structure especially the afterwords. And a detailed banquet description to make you very hungry.

My first book for Women in Translation Month is Masks by Fumiko Enchi, translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter. Really enjoying this so far and having fun googling the different creepy masks mentioned #WITmonth

Another #witmonth ready transcript release! This episode, we’re talking about why there is such a wealth of contemporary books by Japanese women available in English. Also Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata (trans Ginny Tapley Takemori). readjapaneseliterature.com/Podcast/Epis...

Read Japanese Literature@readjapaneseliterature.com · 4w ago

Summer project while the podcast is on hiatus? Get transcripts up for the early episodes!

Kanoko Okamoto was one of the first contributors to the influential Japanese women's magazine Bluestocking. An authority on Buddhism, she frequently revisited the effect of a person's familial ancestral karma on their present-day lives.

Read Japanese Literature@readjapaneseliterature.com · 5d ago

#womenintranslationmonth begins August 1, and RJL is psyched! Every day in August, we'll be posting a short bio of a Japanese woman writer* who takes up feminist themes in her stories. Stay tuned for an August episode on Japanese Women Writers.* readjapaneseliterature.com/Book+lists/J...

Free #witmonth story via Lunch Ticket: "Girl Friends" by Kaori Ekuni (translated by @sharni.bsky.social) “When I take the call from Taki—which I didn’t want to take, but anyway—I’m naked. It’s a fine Saturday afternoon.”

Girl Friends - Lunch Ticket

lunchticket.org

A #WITMonth recommendation. THE WAITING YEARS by Fumiko Enchi. A beautifully written, devastating tale of a dysfunctional family, the sense of entrapment felt by its women compelled to submit to the demands and loose behaviour of men. A wonderful book drenched with sadness. Tr. by John Bester.

The Waiting Years – Fumiko Enchi (tr. John Bester)

Fumiko Enchi’s The Waiting Years is my contribution to #JanuaryinJapan and Dolce Bellezza’s Japanese Literary Challenge, and what a terrific read it turned out to be! Set at the beginning of the Me…

readersretreat2017.wordpress.com

Free #witmonth story via @grantamag.bsky.social: "Trembling" by Maru Ayase (translated by Haydn Trowell) "Somewhere, it was raining. So I thought as I checked the arrival schedule of the shipment of apricot gummies that a client had enquired about...."

Perfect for #witmonth, I've just finished the transcript for Episode 14—Banana and the Bubble. Runaway consumer spending. Everything kawaii. A Nobel laureate’s contempt. And a young author whose career challenged the publishing powers that be. readjapaneseliterature.com/Podcast/Epis...

Read Japanese Literature@readjapaneseliterature.com · 4w ago

Summer project while the podcast is on hiatus? Get transcripts up for the early episodes!

Toshiko Tamura was an actress and early feminist novelist. In 1911, her husband successfully pressured her to publish a short story in a competition—she won first prize and gave up her acting career to write. When she died, she left her royalties to establish a prize for women writers. #witmonth

Read Japanese Literature@readjapaneseliterature.com · 5d ago

#womenintranslationmonth begins August 1, and RJL is psyched! Every day in August, we'll be posting a short bio of a Japanese woman writer* who takes up feminist themes in her stories. Stay tuned for an August episode on Japanese Women Writers.* readjapaneseliterature.com/Book+lists/J...