/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.21733584]

any modern asian writers i should check out?

[Anonymous No.21733692]

>>21733584
Yoko Ogawa is okay.

[Anonymous No.21733695]

>>21733584
Gem

[Anonymous No.21733704]

I liked The Vegeterian by Han Kang

[Anonymous No.21733724]

>>21733584
Go through the Akutagawa Prize list and see what you find in translation. For instance this one is from the 80s and basically unknown:
Kiyohiro Miura - He's leaving Home

[Anonymous No.21734681]

>>21733584
I just read this and it was based, so I’m interested to hear recommendations as well.

[Anonymous No.21734690]

>>21733584
This book is top tier, I'm surprised /lit/ doesn't talk about it more. Autists, wagies, incels, NEETs, it has it all.

[Anonymous No.21734807]

>>21733584
Life Ceremony by the author in pic related. Not as good as Convenience Store Woman though.

[Anonymous No.21734978]

>>21734690
Maybe it had something to do with how the reviews characterized it. Most of the reviewers didn't see the MC as an autist trying to live her best life and construed the character as a psychopath with blah blah blah feminism blah blah blah capitalism.

[Anonymous No.21735044]

>>21734978
Yeah, I looked around at opinions and reviews a bit afterwards (which I try only ever to do after reading to have things ruined) and the media attention and framing have been pretty shit.

Anons, don't let the normie reviews deter you.

[Anonymous No.21735053]

>>21733584
Akira, Asa

[Anonymous No.21735064]

>>21733584
In it's deranged way this is the only book that ever made having a job look remotely charming to me.

[Anonymous No.21735117]

>>21735044
Even the aritcle in the pic does that (frames her entire existence as a writer as reacting against le patriarchy). Fuck, it describes Murata working in a convenience store as "toiling" and presents the fact that she kept doing it until a fan stalked her as a random factoid (i.e. instead of just admitting she did it because she liked it). The one scene described from the book is pic-related (top) and it's tied to the idea of misogyny for some reason. (I included the bottom excerpt because it's funny).

[Anonymous No.21735118]

>>21734978
She makes it sound like she was a 35 yo femcel failure when in reality she was winning literary prizes in school. She was already a writer and it was just a day job.

[Anonymous No.21735123]

>>21735118
She's a volcel turbo autist. The fact she's a woman/Jap masks it when it comes to Western audiences (in the same vein as someone being a complete retard but getting away with it because they have an English accent).

[Anonymous No.21735131]

>>21735117
I wonder if that is genuinely the only interpretation they're capable of or if it's done in bad faith, pandering to their audience or maybe even tricking them into reading something worthwhile.

>(I included the bottom excerpt because it's funny).
Kek. I hope it's in her translated short stories collection, I'm going to read that one soon.

[Anonymous No.21735142]

>>21735123
She did an interview with Louisiana Channel that’s on YouTube and she comes off in that obnoxious writer sort of way but it also doesn’t seem authentic so you might be right. Still, she was not like an aging socially awkward woman with no future working a shitty job. Like I said, she had won literary awards when she was a literature student, which makes her something of an accomplished writer already.

[Anonymous No.21735146]

>>21733584

[Anonymous No.21735159]

>>21735142
the recent one or the first one two years ago? i feel like the recent one suffers from the people who edit and film it, the first one was her just straight forward talking

[Anonymous No.21735178]

>>21735146
If some niche twitter internet celebrity posted this you'd call him based

[Anonymous No.21735182]

>>21735178
I'll do you one better: I call Tao based.

[Anonymous No.21735219]

>>21735159
The recent one where she talks about her stories being prayers. The whole narrative about herself seems so scripted and inauthentic. Maybe it’s true, but it doesn’t come off that way.

[Anonymous No.21735239]

>>21735219
They both seem fine. She comes off far more eccentric than she does pretentious and the picture she draws is pretty funny. Also, like >>21735159 is alluding toward: it's promotional material (and all of the questions guiding the interview have been editted out). My gf met her at work (writer's event) and told me she was really shy and didn't engage with anyone unless she was approached. The person running the event had to lead her around.

[Anonymous No.21735244]

>>21735219
>>21735239
i think there is no way she is a pretending normie since a normie couldn't have written convenience store woman. or earthlings for that matter.

[Anonymous No.21735292]

>>21735244
>tells her publisher she gets sleepy when she writes
>they tell her she can come in and write in their cafeteria
>she does, sits alone in it all day drawing weird violent pictures
>COVID hits and she can't come in anymore because of limits...
>so she cycles around cafes--specifically mentions the same breakfast she orders every day (i.e. they probably asked her the standard "what is your writing routine" question and she sperged about breakfast, kek)
>calmly says she sees herself as a "machine for producing novels" and discussions always come back to her being a lifelong loner with imaginary friends
She's just an autist.

[Anonymous No.21735298]

>>21735292
Nothing about that is unusual.

[Anonymous No.21735378]

>>21735298
>t. autist

[Anonymous No.21735382]

>>21735239
>>21735244
I think it comes off very fake.

[Anonymous No.21735398]

>>21735382
i haven't watched the interviews but the autism or schizoidness or whatever it is in the books seems very real

[Anonymous No.21735543]

>>21733584
>Real World (Natsuo Kirino)
>Revenge (Yoko Ogawa)
Both quick reads.
>>21735382
Seems like a garden variety interview/profile to me.

[Anonymous No.21735561]

>>21735298
Yeah, sitting alone in a cafeteria drawing violent pictures and describing your activities via depersonalization is perfectly normal. Same as continuing to work the wagiest of wagie jobs imaginable after you're already an internationally bestselling author.

[Anonymous No.21735573]

>>21735561
imagining houellebeq stocking shelves at the local Spar out of habit decades into his writing career

[Anonymous No.21735587]

>>21735398
I think her weirdness is authentic. I think the “oh when I was a kid I would write stories and they were prayers to kami-sama” is not. But what was actually inauthentic to me again, is that this was not some hopeless middle aged wagie, which is the impression I had. This was someone who was a successful writer pretty much right off the bat. Literature to me just feels so hyper-real and manufactured. It really triggers me when I catch a whiff of inauthenticity.

[Anonymous No.21735606]

>>21735587
i think art in general can't be authentic. anyone with enough self-consciousness and contextual awareness to make art is already fucked. authenticity is for people who don't know the concept of authenticity.

[Anonymous No.21735640]

>>21735606
I totally disagree with that. I think the best art is authentic. Authenticity might be a requirement to be considered art. Inauthentic “art” is in reality just a product.

[Anonymous No.21735655]

>>21735587
Who said she was "some hopeless middle aged wagie?" They don't present her that way in the interviews, she briefly reflects on how she devoted herself to the job in a context that was likely baited in the question asked, and the Guardian article barely mentions it (after projecting it as toiling).

[Anonymous No.21736171]

>>21734978
Would. She was fine as hell when she was young and doesn't look bad for being in her mid-40s.

[Anonymous No.21736236]

>>21735561
That's what I said.

[Anonymous No.21736238]

its fake weirdness shes coping sour grapes saying she doesnt want a relationship shes not actually asexual and she is stolen valor wagie autist

[Anonymous No.21736239]

>>21736236
This >>21735378.

[Anonymous No.21736242]

>>21736238
Insufficient exposure to BWC. Always a tragedy.

[Anonymous No.21736247]

>>21736239
Maybe you should read Hegel.

[Anonymous No.21736294]

>>21736247
Maybe your mother shouldn't have waited until her late 30s to get pregnant.

[Anonymous No.21736301]

>>21736294
I bet you wear deodorant as conditioned like a dog to do so.

[Anonymous No.21736614]

>>21733584
Now read this.

[Anonymous No.21737819]

>>21736171
cute

[Anonymous No.21738463]

>>21733584
>Quirky, deadpan, poinant, and quietly profound
what the fuck is up with reviewers saying shit like this? i feel like this exact description is on every single "popular" book nowadays. I would never ready anything with this on the cover

[Anonymous No.21738471]

>>21735655
That was my impression of the book before reading it and how some anons presented it. It was like how Lovecraft is celebrated as a NEET.

[Anonymous No.21738534]

>>21738463
Regardless of what normalfags think, Konbini Ningen should resonate with most people who are posting on this website in some way since the question of "was it autism?" will be in your mind constantly for both of the main characters.

[Anonymous No.21739322]

>>21734978
>>21736171
Those lips...

[Anonymous No.21739673]

>>21738463

takes reviewer's blurbs seriously. lol

[Anonymous No.21741210]

>>21733692
Didn’t she break up the Beatles?