/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.1781803]

Japanese literature general thread!

For me, I'm currently reading Japanese Tales by Royall Tyler, a book of folktales, legends and myths from early Japan. About halfway through, stuck on one of the longer ones (way too many Buddhism terms). Greatly enjoyed the section of stories about fox spirits though - while they're still mischievous and manipulative, a lot of the stories show them as extremely lonely and needy as well.

I'm also reading The Tales of Kenji Miyazawa, a children's stories writer and poet from early 20th century Japan. Read the first four stories so far, which included, according to the preface, the three best stories of the collection. The Earthgod and the Fox is my favorite so far, though The Restaraunt of Many Orders was great as well. I got halfway through it and couldn't stop smiling, despite it being damn creepy for a kids story. The Earthgod and the Fox was just brilliant. The book is bilingual, but I can't really read the Japanese yet. Should be useful eventually though!

Also picked up Spirits of Another Sort: The Plays of Kyoka Izumi today from the library. The plays included are Demon Pond, The Sea God's Villa, and The Castle Tower, along with a /ton/ of background and analysis it seems. Which should be fun!

Anyone else reading/read any Japanese lit lately? Or just have any general discussion.

[Anonymous No.1781805]

MANGAS

[Anonymous No.1781807]

>>1781805
Wasn't really meaning manga. That's more of an /a/ thing, seeing as it's in their board title.

[Anonymous No.1781811]

Sory most of us are not really into that Japanese green-haired Big Robots literature

[Anonymous No.1781813]

Probably about to turn in for the night/morning, but try reading No Longer Human by Dazai. It's quite a nice book.

[BrianHerbert !!k1TdMbiPA/h No.1781823]

I've read Dance Dance Dance and thoroughly enjoyed it. I enjoyed it, but I'm hesitant to read Murakami's other books. I have a suspicion they're all the same =/

I've been planning to read Rashomon and Confessions of a Mask for awhile, but, well, so many other books to read.....

[Anonymous No.1781827]

>>1781823
Read Rashomon! The Tuttle or the Penguin version? Either way, the Rashomon, In a Grove, and Hell Screen stories are all relatively short, but absolutely amazing (and should be included in either of those editions).

[BrianHerbert !!k1TdMbiPA/h No.1781830]

>>1781827
I have the Penguin edition. Is one edition superior?

I'll probably read a story or two out of it this weekend. I've had a hankering to read some non science fiction short stories lately.

[Anonymous No.1781837]

>>1781830
Well, the Penguin edition has more stories, but I like the translation of some of the Tuttle ones better (probably just because I read it first though).

And those that I mentioned are still pretty supernatural! They're the stories based off of folktales, myths and stuff. He has realistic and autobiographical stories as well, in addition to more historical based ones, but the supernatural stories were always my favorites.

[Anonymous No.1781905]

Finished up Tales of Kenji Miyazawa!

None of the rest were quite as amazing as the first three, but the later ones had more of a fairytale atmosphere, imo. The First Deer Dance was an especially haunting one - all the imagery of the grass swaying and changing colors with the sun and the deer singing and circling the towel, it was pretty intense. Night of the Festival was probably the most emotional/touching story of the set, with it ending on the kid's overwhelming urge to make the wild man happy somehow. The last one, Gorsch the Cellist, felt like the most children story-like of them. He gets visited by several different speaking animals, practices his skill diligently, becomes a better cellist, learns to love, etc, etc. It was a great story though, and gets you really rooting for Gorsch's success by the end.

[Anonymous No.1781917]

>>1781803
Read No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai!

hes awesome

[Anonymous No.1781920]

>>1781917
Hah, I know! I have it, along with pretty much everything that has been translated into English by Dazai. I think the only book I don't have is the Run! Melos and Other Stories published by the Kodansha English Library.

He was a very interesting guy; reminds me of Akutagawa in some ways, but he's definitely got his own style. I think the next thing I read of his is going to be his autobiographical stories, since I need more biography on the guy.

[Anonymous No.1781926]

Tomihiko Morimi
has anyone read one of his?
heard they are awesome but couldn´t get my hands on a translation

[Anonymous No.1782227]

Bumping.

[Anonymous No.1782248]

I read Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto a few months back and found it to be really enjoyable. What would the people here recommend to someone who liked it?

[Anonymous No.1782253]

>>1782248
More Banana Yoshimoto, really. And possibly Yoko Ogawa, if you want to go a bit darker. You would probably also enjoy Murakami's work.

[Anonymous No.1782717]

Bumping again.

[Anonymous No.1782731]

Can anyone here actually read Japanese?

[sage No.1782751]

>>1781823
murakami does abuse his great narrative voice by always giving you the same one. but it's so good where it was never a big deal for me. i'll read that shit all day erry day.

"rashomon and other stories" by akutagawa is great. rashomon itself is one heck of a story. sad story about his life though.

confessions of a mask is one of the few mishima books i haven't read (that's translated into engrish). excellent writer. idiotic person. spring snow is probably my fave out of the 7 or 8 books i've read by him.

[sage No.1782756]

>>1781917
ahhh i should read that. the setting sun is one of my most favorite books ever. i've only it and some short stories.

[Anonymous No.1784294]

bump

[Anonymous No.1784311]

I read Woman between the Dunes by Kobo Abe yesterday. Its a fantastic book despite having one of the worst couple of opening pages ever, just perceiver it gets much, much better.


Just started reading The Setting Sun by Osamu Dazai today, I'll report back latter

>>1782227

I've been trying to work my way through this list but I've been having a hard time finding ebooks for the (Yea, I know, just buy the real books but I moving countries in a few weeks and I don't want to have to pay for shipping even more books).

If its any use to anyone blue dots mean not available as an ebook.

[3rd No.1784316]

>>1784311
>just perceiver

[Anonymous No.1784329]

>>1784311
Black Rain has an ebook! I don't know about a free version, but it's available on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Black-Rain-ebook/dp/B003YL3POA/

But I went through and did the "I want to read this book on Kindle" for most of those, though I have no clue if that even has a effect.

[Anonymous No.1784466]

>>1782731
I can. I'm currently working on my dissertation on Abe Kobo, and a part of it consists of the translation of two of his earlier stories.
For the anon who was helping me out the other day with finding "The invention of R62", if you are reading this, just want to let you know I found it! It should be arriving tomorrow.

Because of this dissertation, I have read a insane amount of Abe's works. Other than that, I've finally gotten around to reading Murakami's 1Q84. Just started though, not much time for leisure these days.

[Kudryavka !!wEyYEw5OlKU No.1784478]

>>1782731
I can, but I don't really read much real Japanese lit. I waste most of my time reading manga and VNs. I did read a whole bunch of Natsume Souseki a while back, however, and thought he was really brilliant.

[Anonymous No.1784507]

Maybe it's just be failing at computers but I can't seem to find kindle compatible ebooks of the books listed in this thread. Could someone please point me in the right direction?

[Anonymous No.1784534]

>>1784507
Well, Amazon.com has a small few of them in the Kindle store.

Otherwise, do you know about Calibre? If you have the books in another format, the program allows you to convert from formats like .txt. and .rtf and stuff into .mobi's for the Kindle.

[Anonymous No.1784541]

>>1784534
I didn't know about Calibre, can it convert .pdf to mobi?

[Anonymous No.1784547]

>>1784541
Probably! I think it can convert most things to most other things. I thought Kindles could read .pdf's though?

[Anonymous No.1784558]

I think The Woman in the Dunes is my favorite thing that I have read so far this year.

[Anonymous No.1785948]

I'm going to be adding in Kenji Miyazawa's The Restaurant of Many Orders and The Earthgod and the Fox to the Japanese lit .zip thing, as soon as I finish typing the later. I also finished doing The Dancing Girl of Izu by Kawabata, so I'll put that one in there too.

Next I think I'm going to type up some of Osamu Dazai's out of print short stories - thinking Romanesque and Melos, Run!

Some other out print authors I'm thinking about putting stories in from are Inagaki Taruho, maybe some of Ogai Mori's historical fiction, something from the Kunikida Doppo short story book, and possibly Madame de Sade by Mishima (this one might be too long for me though).

Thoughts on these selections? Trying to just do out of print ones at the moment, since I doubt most people are going to want to pay $30 for this stuff without knowing anything about it. And I feel less bad about it morally.

[Anonymous No.1786004]

Eager to read Tanizaki's "The Key".

[Anonymous No.1788256]

>>1786004
Scanning that one! I guess it's technically still in print in that combo book with Diary of a Mad Old Man, but. I loved this one and want to share it. Plus, my copy is already in shitty condition, so scanning isn't going to hurt it any more.

And surprisingly, my $20 scanner is pretty alright at this. Here's the first page; I'll make a .pdf or something when I finish. It's 170 or so pages though, so it might take a day or two.

[Anonymous No.1788303]

>>1788256
I guess I might as well upload the first few pages here.

[Anonymous No.1788318]

I just finished reading Kafka on the Shore today. It was pretty cool.
Anyone got any suggestions for books similar to Kafka?

[Anonymous No.1788346]

>>1788303

[Anonymous No.1788398]

>>1788346

[Anonymous No.1788444]

>>1788398

[Anonymous No.1788466]

>>1788444

[Anonymous No.1788487]

>>1788466
And here's where the diary entry switches to the wife's point of view. I suppose I'll stop here for now.

[Anonymous No.1788542]

>>1788318
I read the Wind up bird chronicle right after it, it's a mouthfull though, Norweigan Wood is his strongest imo, haven't read 1Q84 yet.

[Anonymous No.1788895]

>>1788256
Bumping for the win. Waiting for the pdf.

Also, the two first novels of Murakami, anyone know where to, eh, 'find' them?

[Anonymous No.1789233]

>>1788542
>haven't read 1Q84 yet.

That probably has something to do with the fact it isn't published in English yet.

[Anonymous No.1789353]

>>1781803
>Kyoka Izumi
OH MY GOD THANK YOU OP

I have been fucking trying to remember his name for MONTHS. If you can find a copy of "Japanese Gothic Tales," a collection of some of his translated works, I would highly recommend reading it. It contains "Koya Hijiri" (The Holy Man of Mt. Koya) which is hands down one of my favorite short stories ever written, ever.

I shall also offer forth Natsuhiko Kyogoku, a fantastic contemporary folklorist/mystery writer. I believe that only one of his novels, The Summer of Ubume, is available in English, and though I haven't read it (yet) it has come to me highly recommended. I have however read his "Kousetsu Hyakku Monogatari" series, a collection of reinterpretations of classic Japanese ghost stories that focus Kyogoku's trademark theme of "sublimation," specifically that "ghosts" are really the psychological manifestation of a criminal's own guilt. The series was made into a anime series (called "Requiem from the Darkness" in English) which is also pretty damn fantastic if you happen to like Japanese ghost stories.

[Anonymous No.1789469]

>>1781805
the only supernatural and quiet manga i know are Mushishi and Natsume Yuujincho.

I'd rec OP with Soseki. I'm in the middle of Sputnik Sweetheart by Murakami.

[Anonymous No.1789480]

Would anyone happen to know where I can easily obtain a bunch of Japanese ebooks (in Japanese)?

thanks

[Anonymous No.1789489]

>>1789480
The closest I can suggest is "FoXHaCKeRZ Japanese LightNovel Pack torrent" but that is, as the name suggests, just Light Novels (young adult SF/fantasy pulp fiction). Good if you just want easy things to practice reading in Japanese, bad if you want any actual decent writing.

[Anonymous No.1789498]

>>1788256
>>1788303
>>1788346
>>1788398
>>1788444
>>1788466
>>1788487

You are a hero anon.

[Anonymous No.1789505]

>>1789480
There's also Aozora Bunko at www.aozora.gr.jp

It has e-texts of a lot of out of copyright works on it - Natsume Soseki, Higuchi Ichiyo, Kyoka Izumi - there's a ton of great writers.

[Anonymous No.1789892]

up

[Anonymous No.1790291]

aw yiss - the Japanese Lit v3 an anon pointed me to the other day - http://www.mediafire.com/?ca1q1oeyzgypdv3

[Anonymous No.1790312]

>>1790291
You are a saint! I've been looking for that for a while now.

[Anonymous No.1790338]

>>1790291
were I so inclined as to desire to bear offspring I would in gratitude offer to you the opportunity to sire them

[Anonymous No.1790364]

>>1790312
just search /rs/ periodically for 'japanese lit' - they update this pack.

i'll add 2 more JLit charts i don't see here.

1

[Anonymous No.1790369]

>>1790338
i'm unworthy. i'm merely passing on what another gracious anon gave me that day in my haiku thread.

2

[Anonymous No.1790566]

>>1790291
Hah, damn! I was going to try and sneak in The Key in the v3 one. I guess I'll name this one v3.1, since there really isn't too much added to it this time.

>http://www.mediafire.com/?xwd5erpfjd9my69

Things added:
The Key by Junichiro Tanizaki
The Quilt by Katai Tayama
The Dancing Girl of Izu by Yasunari Kawabata
The Restaraunt of Many Orders by Kenji Miyazawa

Now, The Key pdf ended up kind of very messy and uneven. It's also ridiculously big (17mb), but I'm trying to fix that somehow. Everything is still completely readable though! All in all, it only took me a day to scan. I think I'll try doing it with a few other of my hardcovers/bad condition paperbacks.

[Anonymous No.1790961]

Bumping in the hopes someone knows where I can download The Tales of Kenji Miyazawa for my kindle.

[Anonymous No.1791101]

>>1790961
I really doubt you're going to find the complete book anywhere, but I have an .rtf of one of the stories in the .zip right above you that you can convert to .mobi with Calibre. I'm typing another one of them too, but I doubt I'm going to do the whole book.

Let us know if you do happen to find the whole thing somewhere though! The full text of Night Train to the Stars by Miyazawa is also in the .zip, if you're curious to check out something else by him.

[Anonymous No.1791267]

>>1791101
Thanks, if I do find it I'll let everyone know. Normally I would just buy it from Amazon but it's not available on the kindle and I can't spare $48 for one book.

[Anonymous No.1791405]

>>1789233
The swedish translation was released 2-3 months ago.

They are being jews and publishing it in 3 parts tho and not one huge as with 'Wind up bird chronicle' and each part is like 40$ a pop so im just waiting for a price drop
The library doesn't even have it either.

[Anonymous No.1791656]

>>1790566
thank you anon!

[Anonymous No.1791992]

>>1790566

[Anonymous No.1792421]

I remember reading this when I was younger and loving it dearly.

[Anonymous No.1792446]

>>1792421
That collection doesn't have the short story written from the perspective of a cardboard box waxing eloquent about its desire to be filled with things, does it?

I wish I could remember the name of that story or the book I found it in, it left a huge impression on me.

[Anonymous No.1792639]

>>1792446
Actually it does. Cardboard box by Ryo Hanmura translated by David Lewis.

[Anonymous No.1792706]

FINISHED SEVEN JAPANESE TALES AND AM NOW READING PATRIOT BY MISHIMA.


YEAH

[Anonymous No.1794069]

>>1788542
Comes out October 25, 2011 according to the Knopf website.

[Anonymous No.1795496]

Scanned in the Hojoki by Kamo no Chomei, since it was short and I'm trying to perfect a good scanning method/smaller file sizes. Here it is by itself, and I'll add it to the .zip later on:

http://www.mediafire.com/?nj2pl6ccf2dlkki

It's a 13th century work, but I feel like it's pretty relevant still. Deals with the author's experiences with numerous natural disasters that happened one after the other during that time period, and then the author's choice to become a monk and move deep into seclusion in the mountains.

I'm gonna do the plays in the book of Kyoka Izumi plays now, experimenting with monochrome .bmp's for smaller files. Plus, there's at least one more Kyoka fan here! (>>1789353) And these are way expensive to get ahold of otherwise.

[Anonymous No.1796761]

bump

[Anonymous No.1796836]

>>1795496
I love you a little bit.

[Anonymous No.1798176]

bump

[Anonymous No.1798602]

RAVEN, FUCK YEAH (THIS IS A BUMP)

[Anonymous No.1798995]

up

[Anonymous No.1800026]

Got this one from the library today and finished reading it.

There's only about 45 pages worth of reading here (that is worth reading). The book starts with a first-grade-reading-level introduction that makes the translator seem incapable of making a compound sentence, then there's an almost useful timeline of Soseki's life. At the end of it there's a glossary/notes page full of rather useless definitions. I mean, come on. Samurai? Sake? Do we really need a dictionary definition for those in a book like this? That combined with the weird, out-of-place black and white photos, as a Goodreads reviewer said, leaves you with the "feeling like the expected reader was a second grader discussing Japan one day in Social Studies."

Despite all that mess, the stories themselves are enjoyable. They're interesting - sometimes creepy, sometimes poignant, mostly strange. I would definitely recommend it to anyone interested in dreams and surrealistic stories! My favorites were the fourth (probably the strangest one), fifth (love the historical setting), and seventh (seems particularly existential) nights' dreams, though the tenth one feels like the quintessentially strange dream.

There's a partial scan of this one in the .zip, so I think I'll scan up the missing stories to make it complete as soon as I feel like doing it!

[Anonymous No.1800321]

And now I've finished this one!

Having read Five Modern No Plays not too long ago and loved it, I was definitely ready for more of Mishima's theatre. This one is a bit different from his No plays though - for one, it's much longer at three acts. It also depends less on tropes and customs, and has a historical setting vs. the modern ones in the No plays. I enjoyed the postface by Mishima at the end, where he explains his inspiration for the play and some reasoning behind his character and stage direction choices. My edition also came with very nicely placed black and white photographs of what I assume was the original staging of the play in 1965 (they don't have captions or footnotes).

For the play itself, I'm going to go ahead and say I don't know much about the Marquis de Sade. I know basic things about his life and works, but that's about it. And despite that, I greatly enjoyed this play. It has an all female cast, and as Mishima puts it, could be said to be "Sade seen through women's eyes." All of the characters are riveting, there's a good bit of sarcastic humor, the off-stage recaps are very intense (especially the trampling), and the drama and psychological aspects of all the women are extremely interesting. It was the initial curiosity of the Madame de Sade's absolute devotion to her husband, only to abandon him when he is finally released from prison, that spurred Mishima to write the play. And his characterization of her perfectly fits in with that choice.

It really was an amazing play, one I'd love to see performed. Mishima mentions his avoidance of real stage directions/effects, focusing more on the actors and their speech. A very appropriate choice imo, since so much of the play is about the characters' emotions.

And guh, I want to scan this one too. There are too many damn things I want to share.

[Anonymous No.1801153]

上げ

[Anonymous No.1801197]

Paprika is a really good novel. Prepare for feminism.

I also enjoy Salmonella men from planet porno. It's a collection of short stories, and they're all fucking weird.

Here's one.
>friend goes to his friend's house
>friend 2: sup bro i made a time machine
>friend 1: lol fucking bullshit
>friend 2:lol i totally did
>they get in
>go back in time...FIVE WHOLE MINUTES
>go into crawlspace
>watch their past selves have the conversation about building a time machine
>rolling around crawlspace, giggling and trying to keep quiet
>end

[Anonymous No.1801249]

>>1788318
GOGOL!
I think Gogol is better because funnier and much more clever and less whiny. ^^

[Anonymous No.1801440]

In regards to Dazai, I fully agree with Keene that he should have written more stories about that weird family that liked to tell stories.

[Anonymous No.1802638]

Alright, finished scanning Ten Nights' Dreams! I decided to go ahead and do all the stories, seeing as the one in the .zip was a different translation. And there are a lot of jarring differences between the two ("I dreamt" vs "I dreamed a dream" being the most obvious).

http://www.mediafire.com/?au1zsmmz9sg7b4u

[sage No.1802666]

>>1802638
fucking cool, man. thanks a bunch.

[Anonymous No.1802782]

up

[Anonymous No.1802810]

Because of my undying love for Haruki Murakami, I've decided to check out some other Japanese authors. So far I'm a little disappointed. I liked Never Let Me Go, but does that even count?

[Anonymous No.1802824]

>>1802810
I've always counted Kazuo Ishiguro as more British than Japanese. I think in an interview somewhere he stated that no one would even consider him Japanese literature if he had used a pen name or something.

Which other authors have you tried so far?

[Anonymous No.1803464]

bump

[Anonymous No.1804775]

>>1802810
you might want to read murakami's preface to soseki's sanshiro.

[Anonymous No.1804801]

SORRY, UNAWARE THIS THREAD HADN'T 404'D.

GOOD NEWS EVERYONE. YOU CAN ACCESS THE SETTING SUN BY DAZAI FOR FREE VIA #BOOKZ, MUST'VE RECENTLY BEEN ADDED TO THE BOT'S LIST.

WHOEVER MANAGES THE JAP LIT FOLDER, FEEL FREE TO ADD IT IN.

[Anonymous No.1804838]

>>1804801
SAME GOES FOR TANIZAKI

BOOKS ON #BOOKZ NOT IN JAP LIT FOLDER
MAKIOKA SISTERS
IN PRAISE OF SHADOWS (THIS IS AN ESSAY)

[Anonymous No.1804985]

>>1804801
been monitoring this thread and trying to bump it every 12 hours. picked this up today because i was having a shitty day at my minimum wage job. buying shit makes me happy.

[Anonymous No.1806552]

LET'S USE OUR COLLECTIVE SKILLS AT FINDING THINGS ON THE INTERNET TO FIND JAPANESE LITERATURE NOT CURRENTLY IN THE JAP /LIT/ FOLDER

[Anonymous No.1807152]

>>1806552
someone mentioned Soseki's Haiku in the previous japanese lit thread... if we can hunt that down.

[Anonymous No.1807194]

HUNT IT ALL DOWN, OR PRAY THAT RAVEN AND OTHERS CONTINUE SCANNING STUFF.

[Anonymous No.1807204]

>>1807152
read kasumakura (the three cornered world).

i think people consider it a hybrid between haiku and prose.

>>1804775
sanshiro is my favorite soseki. it's light, subtle and really bittersweet. i think it or botchan as probably the best for a person's first soseki. or maybe kokoro if they're looking for something darker.

[Anonymous No.1808371]

>>1807194
Who's this raven you speak of? I always miss the threads and can't usually find my j lit anons...
>>1807204
That'd be my favorite soseki mate. The opening itself is gorgeous.

[Anonymous No.1808538]

>>1807152
I'll pick that one up! Might take a little bit though, as the nearest library to me that has it is like 700 miles away (I'm using inter-library loan for most of these).

>>1808371
Raven is my name :D Not sure if you have Goodreads or anything like that, but here's mine just in case!: http://www.goodreads.com/sriq

[Anonymous No.1808560]

>>1808538
Oh, and I guess for whoever would want to know, here's what I've already got coming from the library:

Night Train to the Stars and Other Stories by Kenji Miyazawa
Run, Melos! and Other Stories by Osamu Dazai
My friend Hitler and Other Plays by Yukio Mishima
The Hunting Gun by Yasushi Inoue
Three plays by Kobo Abe
Love and Other Stories by Riichi Yokomitsu
A Rainbow in the Desert : an Anthology of Early 20th century Japanese Children's Literature

Not sure which ones I'm going to scan, but I definitely want to do more Miyazawa, because I am really loving him. The Yokomitsu one I know is out of print, so I might do some stories from that, if not the whole thing. And then the Soseki's haiku one! And I've got to finish up the other two plays in the Kyoka book as well.

Hmm. Oh! And I'll pick up the ones in #bookz you mentioned, capsguy! And add them to the thing. It's actually becoming pretty decent now!

[Anonymous No.1810178]

bump

[Anonymous No.1810801]

>>1808560
Much love for the soseki one!! Thank you! Gonna try to find op's recs in my library today. The only good thing about my horrible job is it's making me crave reading. I'd stopped reading fiction and writing for 5 years prior because life got happier.

[Anonymous No.1811133]

I BUMP BECAUSE I AM CAPSGUY

[Anonymous No.1812080]

up

managed to get this in the mail - didn't realize it would be so /small/. about 12 cm by 9 cm

[Anonymous No.1812132]

This thread has sold me.
I will now lurk /lit/ regularly.
I'm done with school for the semester, and have been thinking I'll do a lot more reading for pleasure and maybe even some writing this summer. Been on a J-Lit kick big time lately. Asian Studies major here. My Japanese reading skills are improving steadily, going to try reading something I've read a few times in the original. Maybe Norwegian Wood or The Sailor who Fell from Grace with the Sea...

Th-thanks /lit/. I think we'll get along well.

Yours Truly,
~anon
(former /b/tard, former /r9k/lurker, current /fit/izen and now /lit/erati)

[Anonymous No.1812383]

>>1812132
came here for some haiku recs from /cm/. stayed for the j-lit threads.

[Anonymous No.1812409]

does anyone know where I can find Nankichi Niimi's works either in english or in "simple" Japanese? I'm tutoring some kids over the summer and I'd like to have some kind of book in Japanese that wouldn't be too hard for them to read on their own.

[Anonymous No.1812859]

>>1812409
http://www.aozora.gr.jp/index_pages/person121.html

I looked through the .html files for some of these and they don't seem /too/ complicated. Some of them may have too many kanji, but I bet you could cherry pick the simpler ones!

There's also: http://www.amazon.com/Niimi-Buying-Mittens-Nankichi/dp/0824821297/

for an English translation, but I think that may be the only one.

[Anonymous No.1812977]

bumping. Best thread we've had on /lit/ in a while