This year witnessed plenty of struggle and loss, but there was at least some good news: 2020 was the year the world embraced the considerable talents of Mieko Kawakami. Readers will therefore be delighted to know that her novel, ¡°Heaven,¡± will be published in English in May 2021. Translated by Sam Bett and David Boyd, it tells the story of teenage bullying from the point of view of a 14-year-old boy. Kawakami is a writer who doesn¡¯t shy away from hard truths and painful experiences, so this will not be an easy read, but it¡¯s guaranteed to be a rewarding one.
Hard truths and painful experiences could be the subtitle of ¡°Black Box¡± by Shiori Ito, translated by Allison Markin Powell. In 2015, Ito, a junior journalist, accused prominent reporter Noriyuki Yamaguchi of rape. As all too often happens in Japan, the police refused to prosecute. Ito went public with her story, and became a catalyst for the #MeToo movement in Japan. In 2019, she finally won a civil case against Yamaguchi. ¡°Black Box¡± is Ito¡¯s account of the events and promises to be a major publication when it¡¯s released in July.
Another Japanese writer with new work coming out in 2021 is Yoko Tawada, whose collection of stories, ¡°3 Streets,¡± translated by Margaret Mitsutani, will be out in June. Ghosts stalk the pages of these three supernatural tales: a boy in East Berlin haunts a health food store, a Soviet-era statue comes to life, and the specter of Russian poet Vladimir Mayakovsky visits his biggest fan.
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