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Reading lists

The best Japanese fiction in translation

Real World

Psychologically intricate and astute, dark and unflinching, Real World is a searing, eye-opening portrait of teenage life in Japan unlike any we have seen before.

Kirino uses her considerable narrative gifts to evoke the tedium, pressure and angst her teenage characters suffer

Kirino creates a fictional universe in which the normal rules of engagement no longer apply...she chronicles the toxic fall out of an educational system that fosters conformity above individualism

Japanese crime queen ... a tense, worried book of actions and consequences

She may be the best crime writer to emerge from Japan in years

The translation is smooth and invisible... Compelling

Natsuo Kirino, born in 1951, is the author of sixteen novels, four short-story collections, and an essay collection. She is the recipient of six of Japan's premier literary awards, including the Mystery Writers of Japan Award for Out, and the Izumi Kyoka Prize for Literature for Grotesque. Her work has been translated into nineteen languages, and several of her books have been turned into movies. Out was the first of her novels to appear in English and was nominated for an Edgar Award. She lives in Tokyo.

In a suburb on the outskirts of Tokyo, four teenage girls drift through a hot smoggy August and tedious summer school classes. There's dependable Toshi; brainy Terauchi; Yuzan, grief-stricken and confused; and Kirarin, whose late nights and reckless behaviour remain a secret from those around her. 
 
Then Toshi's next-door neighbour is found brutally murdered and the girls suspect Worm, the neighbour's son and a high school misfit. But when he disappears (taking Toshi's bike and cell phone with him) the four girls become irresistibly drawn into a treacherous vortex of brutality and seduction which rises from within themselves as well as the world around them.

Grotesque

An unconvential and unique crime thriller with an outrageous, unattractive, anarchic narrator showing a new darker side to the lives of women in Japan.

Delves so deep beyond its own shock horror premise that much contemporary crime fiction looks like cheap, exploitative rubbish by comparison ....an utterly absorbing novel that gives as vivid - and disturbing - a picture of contemporary Japan as you could imagine

Suicide, paedophilia, incest and murder combine with subtle touches of humour to form a story that will leave you questioning your own morality

This is a rich, complex read. Be prepared for a book utterly unlike anything we are used to in crime fiction

It is one of the most unexpected and playful novels to emerge from Japan in recent years...a triumph. In its boldness and originality, it broadens our sense of what modern Japanese fiction can be

Unclichéd contemporary noir at its most absorbing and relevant...a masterful and haunting achievement

Two prostitutes are murdered in Tokyo. 
 
Twenty years previously both women were educated at the same elite school for young ladies, and had seemingly promising futures ahead of them. 
 
But in a world of dark desire and vicious ambition, for both women, prostitution meant power. Grotesque is a masterful and haunting thriller, a chilling exploration of women's secret lives in modern day Japan.

A masterpiece from the queen of Japanese crime - an unflinching, fast-moving foray into the darkest recesses of society and the human soul. Perfect for fans of Gone Girl.

Daring and disturbing, OUT is prepared to push the limits of this world - not only in violence and sex but also in human outlook… Remarkable

OUT is a potent cocktail of urban blight, perverse feminism and vigilante justice

Brings the mystery thriller to new levels of intensity and realism - OUT has great plot twists, vigour and an ending that would make Hannibal Lecter smile

In this top-drawer page-turner, Kirino offers a clever snapshot of her own culture...slyly amusing and compulsive

Natsuo Kirino, born in 1951, quickly established a reputation in Japan as one of a rare breed of crime writer whose work goes well beyond the conventional crime novel. This fact has been demonstrated by her winning not only Japan's top mystery award, for Out, but one of its major literary awards, the Naoki Prize, for Soft Cheeks, followed by the Tanizaki Prize for Tokyo Island. Several of her books have also been turned into movies.

In the Tokyo suburbs four women work the draining graveyard shift at a boxed-lunch factory. Burdened with chores and heavy debts and isolated from husbands and children, they all secretly dream of a way out of their dead-end lives. 
 
A young mother among them finally cracks and strangles her philandering, gambling husband then confesses her crime to Masako, the closest of her colleagues. For reasons of her own, Masako agrees to assist her friend and seeks the help of the other co-workers to dismember and dispose of the body. The body parts are discovered, the police start asking questions, but the women have far more dangerous enemies -a yakuza connected loan shark who discovers their secret and has a business proposition, and a ruthless nightclub owner the police are convinced is guilty of the murder. He has lost everything as a result of their crime and he is out for revenge. 
 
OUT is a psychologically taut and unflinching foray into the darkest recesses of the human soul, an unsettling reminder that the desperate desire for freedom can make the most ordinary person do the unimaginable.

Natsuo Kirino

OUT got my heart beating this year... The tone of the novel, flat and chill, fits its subject to perfection, and admiration for Kirino grows all the way

The gritty realism comes across with pungent force

Grimly satisfying - like no one you've ever read before

No gritty urban American tale of violence can match the horror of OUT

It’s bleak, twisted and heightened reality is compelling

(Vintage Classics Japanese Series)

In the Tokyo suburbs four women work the graveyard shift at a factory. Burdened with heavy debts, alienated from husbands and children, they all secretly dream of a way out of their dead-end lives. 
 
A young mother among them finally cracks and strangles her philandering, gambling husband. She confesses her crime to her colleagues and unexpectedly, they agree to help. But then the dismembered body parts are discovered, the police start asking questions and more dangerous enemies begin to close in. 
 
OUT is a psychologically taut and unflinching foray into the darkest recesses of the human soul, an unsettling reminder that the desperate desire for freedom can make the most ordinary person do the unimaginable. 
 
 VINTAGE JAPANESE CLASSICS - five masterpieces of Japanese fiction in gorgeous new gift editions.

Natsuo Kirino

Praise for Out

Daring and disturbing, OUT is prepared to push the limits of this world - not only in violence and sex but also in human outlook… Remarkable

OUT is a potent cocktail of urban blight, perverse feminism and vigilante justice

A shockingly intense read

Daring and disturbing, OUT is prepared to push the limits of this world - not only in violence and sex but also in human outlook… Remarkable

OUT is a potent cocktail of urban blight, perverse feminism and vigilante justice

A shockingly intense read

Daring and disturbing, OUT is prepared to push the limits of this world - not only in violence and sex but also in human outlook… Remarkable

OUT is a potent cocktail of urban blight, perverse feminism and vigilante justice

A shockingly intense read

Books by Natsuo Kirino

Articles featuring Natsuo Kirino

The best Japanese fiction in translation

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