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The Only Gaijin in the Village

Author: Iain Maloney

Publisher: Birlinn Ltd

Published: 2020-03-05

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 1788852591

In 2016 Scottish writer Iain Maloney and his Japanese wife Minori moved to a village in rural Japan. This is the story of his attempt to fit in, be accepted and fulfil his duties as a member of the community, despite being the only foreigner in the village. Even after more than a decade living in Japan and learning the language, life in the countryside was a culture shock. Due to increasing numbers of young people moving to the cities in search of work, there are fewer rural residents under the retirement age – and they have two things in abundance: time and curiosity. Iain's attempts at amateur farming, basic gardening and DIY are conducted under the watchful eye of his neighbours and wife. But curtain twitching is the least of his problems. The threat of potential missile strikes and earthquakes is nothing compared to the venomous snakes, terrifying centipedes and bees the size of small birds that stalk Iain's garden. Told with self-deprecating humour, this memoir gives a fascinating insight into a side of Japan rarely seen and affirms the positive benefits of immigration for the individual and the community. It's not always easy being the only gaijin in the village.

The Inland Sea

Author: Donald Richie

Publisher: Stone Bridge Press

Published: 2015-09-28

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 1611729165

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"An elegiac prose celebration . . . a classic in its genre."—Publishers Weekly In this acclaimed travel memoir, Donald Richie paints a memorable portrait of the island-studded Inland Sea. His existential ruminations on food, culture, and love and his brilliant descriptions of life and landscape are a window into an Old Japan that has now nearly vanished. Included are the twenty black and white photographs by Yoichi Midorikawa that accompanied the original 1971 edition. Donald Richie (1924–2013) was an internationally recognized expert on Japanese culture and film. Yoichi Midorikawa (1915–2001) was one of Japan's foremost nature photographers.

Kanazawa

Author: David Joiner

Publisher: Stone Bridge Press, Inc.

Published: 2022-01-25

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 161172953X

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In Kanazawa, the first literary novel in English to be set in this storied Japanese city, Emmitt’s future plans collapse when his wife, Mirai, suddenly backs out of negotiations to purchase their dream home. Disappointed, he’s surprised to discover Mirai’s subtle pursuit of a life and career in Tokyo, a city he dislikes. Harmony is further disrupted when Emmitt’s search for a more meaningful life in Japan leads him to quit an unsatisfying job at a local university. In the fallout, he finds himself helping his mother-in-law translate Kanazawa’s most famous author, Izumi Kyoka, into English. While continually resisting Mirai’s efforts to move to Tokyo, Emmitt becomes drawn into the mysterious death thirty years prior of a mutual friend of Mirai’s parents. It is only when he and his father-in-law climb the mountain where the man died that he learns the somber truth, and in turn discovers what the future holds for him and his wife. Packed with subtle literary allusion and closely observed nuance, with an intimacy of emotion inexorably tied both to the cityscape and Japan’s mountainous terrain, Kanazawa reflects the mood of Japanese fiction in a fresh, modern incarnation.

The Waves Burn Bright

Author: Iain Maloney

Publisher: Cargo Publishing

Published: 2016-05-19

Total Pages: 175

ISBN-13: 1910449830

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In 1988 the Piper Alpha oil platform off the coast of Aberdeen, Scotland exploded, killing 167 men. The Waves Burn Bright is a deeply effecting, sensitive exploration of its devastating aftermath on one family. Carrie Fraser is 16 when the disaster occurs, her father Marcus one of the survivors. As the narrative moves between past and present the trauma blows open existing fractures, tearing the family apart. In adulthood and after many years living abroad, Carrie, now a respected volcanologist, is returning to Aberdeen to deliver a controversial academic paper. Carrie and her father are estranged, partly due to his post-traumatic stress and related alcoholism, a legacy of Piper Alpha. Will a reconciliation be possible or will the aftershocks of a tragedy that occurred 25 years before continue to drive father and daughter apart? ‘A cauldron of a book, bubbling with anger and magma which might at any moment spill over and bring further devastation. It is both particular to this tragedy in 1988, but also universal; a compelling story exploring how a father’s trauma sends shock waves through a family, changes the pattern of lives – particularly his daughter’s – and makes love risky. However, as well as being about damage and running away, it is also about healing.’ Linda Cracknell, author of Call of the Undertow and Doubling Back 'it wasn't so much that Maloney's characters had made an impact on my world, but that I had entered theirs... simply a cracking good read.' Alison Miller, author of Demo

Japantown

Author: Barry Lancet

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2014-07-22

Total Pages: 432

ISBN-13: 145169170X

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An American antiques dealer-turned-reluctant private investigator draws on his knowledge of Japanese culture to assist the San Francisco police department with the senseless murder of an entire family.

First Time Solo

Author: Iain Maloney

Publisher:

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781908754615

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A distinctive debut novel by a mature new voice sheds light on a previously neglected aspect of war, its casualties and victims, and those forces unleashed by a conflict that changed the world forever It's 1943 and Jack Devine, a farmer's son from the rural North of Scotland, is finally called up to the RAF. Jack dreams of becoming a pilot, breaking hearts, and returning home a hero. The realities of training are very different, with boredom, bullying, and casual violence the norm. Drawn together by a love of jazz music, Jack makes friends with Terry, a worldly Welshman dabbling in the black market; Joe, a fellow Scot and aggressive anti-fascist; and the public school educated Clive. The group form a jazz band to surprising acclaim and for a while an alternative future to that preordained for each seems possible. But the initial camaraderie soon gives way to simmering resentment as age-old tensions resurface. When one of the four dies in a suspicious flying accident, another in the group is suspected of murder. Jack must not only navigate the demands of pilot training, an errant girlfriend, constant redeployments, and a bloody war that is getting ever nearer, but also the ever-present danger closer to home and the increasing realization that the dice are stacked against those like him wishing to escape the shackles of the old order.

Gaijin! Gaijin!

Author: Kenneth Fenter

Publisher:

Published: 1987

Total Pages: 374

ISBN-13:

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An American Family in Japan. The Fenter family travels from Springfield, Oregon in the summer of 1977 to Isahaya, Kyushu Japan to teach English at Chinzei Gakuin. The family of four: Kenneth 37, Lora 36, Philip 12, and Janelle 8 enter into a world where they are on display and unable to communicate. Gaijin! Gaijin! is a portrait of the people, customs, and traditions of contemporary Japan far from the bustle of of Tokyo.

The Short Story Collective

Author: Andrew Innes

Publisher: Independently Published

Published: 2021-11-02

Total Pages: 278

ISBN-13:

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"Yui thought of nothing and focused her mind on it. This was going to be easy. Except, was that not a contradiction? If she was thinking of nothing, wasn`t that nothing, something? In that moment, the city felt a hundred miles and a thousand years away." The Short Story Collective is a thirteen-part journey through contemporary Japan with the odd stop along the way to visit both the past and the future. In the title story, a young writer meets a drunken salamander who shares a tale passed down through the generations. In "The Koan", a young lady doubts her own existence after completing a thousand marathons through the misty mountains of Kyoto. In "Digital Detox", we meet a crafty farmer who cleverly lures gullible tourists to his country house. In "When in Rome", the reader is introduced to a trio of tourists who epitomize the phrase Tourist Pollution. In "Anger Management", the owner of a sake brewery battles to control his temper in a country where public expressions of emotion are very much frowned upon. In these stories and more, the reader is introduced to a perspective on Japan that is at times dark, occasionally surreal, yet always engaging. Innes has been featured in Tokyo Weekender, The Font, and The Best Asian Short Stories 2021. The Short Story Collective is his first book.

Alternatives to Valium

Author: Alastair McKay

Publisher: Polygon

Published: 2022-04-07

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 9781846975813

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“A few years ago, I asked Tom Petty how his songs had been influenced by his life. As a rule, songwriters aren’t keen on unpicking their work, and Petty was no exception. He didn’t want to get into specifics. ‘Life is so difficult,’ he said. ‘And easy. It’s just a chain of spontaneous events.’” Alastair McKay’s own life was inspired and informed by music, so his book takes the form of an album, with two distinct sides. The first side is about childhood, and the struggle to find a voice. The second side is about interviews, and learning how to listen. An exceptionally shy boy, Alastair gradually found his voice through the punk explosion: the ethos that ‘anyone could do it’ prompted him to start writing, largely because it was easier than talking. From these hesitant beginnings, and his own failed attempts at musicianship, he would go on to a successful career in journalism: sharing a limousine with Kate Moss, meeting Iggy Pop at the Chateau Marmont, being led astray by Tilda Swinton and many, many other encounters.

For Fukui's Sake

Author: Sam Baldwin

Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform

Published: 2012-11-19

Total Pages: 210

ISBN-13: 9781467924146

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'Witty and highly entertaining; a fascinating insight into the lives of ordinary Japanese people' - Helen Arnold, 1001 Escapes 'Jocular and candid; essential reading for backpackers and Japanophiles' - Ginny Light, former online editor, The Times 'Really evokes that excitement of 'discovering' Japan for the first time. I thoroughly enjoyed it'- Jan Dodd, Rough Guide To Japan 'A fascinating journey and call to action' - Mark Hodson, writer, Sunday Times Far from the high-tech, high-rise of the super-cities, there lies another Japan. A Japan where snakes slither down school corridors, where bears prowl dark forests and where Westerners are still regarded as curious creatures. Welcome to the world of the inaka - the Japanese countryside. Unhappily employed in the UK, Sam Baldwin decides to make a big change. Saying sayonara to laboratory life, he takes a job as an English teacher on the JET Programme in a small, rural Japanese town that no one - the Japanese included - has ever heard of. Arriving in Fukui, where there's 'little reason to linger' according to the guidebook, at first he wonders why he left England. But as he slowly settles in to his unfamiliar new home, Sam befriends a colourful cast of locals and begins to discover the secrets of this little known region. Helped by headmasters, housewives and Himalayan mountain climbers, he immerses himself in a Japan still clutching its pastoral past and uncovers a landscape of lonely lakes, rice fields and lush mountain forests. Joining a master drummer's taiko class, skiing over paddies and learning how to sharpen samurai swords, along the way Sam encounters farmers, fishermen and foreigners behaving badly. Exploring Japan's culture and cuisine, as well as its wild places and wildlife, For Fukui's Sake is an adventurous, humorous and sometimes poignant insight into the frustrations and fascinations that face an outsider living in small town, backcountry Japan. For more info see: ForFukuisSake.com