For readers who want to be introduced to exciting contemporary Japanese writers, especially women (Mieko Kawakami, Aoko Matsuda, and more).

MONKEY New Writing from Japan is an annual anthology that showcases the best of contemporary Japanese literature. Volume 3 celebrates CROSSINGS: Transitioning Out of the Pandemic, we are inspired by stories of transformation and the joyful play between Japanese and Western literatures. MONKEY offers short fiction and poetry by writers such as Mieko Kawakami, Haruki Murakami, Hiromi Kawakami, and Aoko Matsuda; a graphic narrative by Satoshi Kitamura; and contributions from Stuart Dybek and Matthew Sharpe.

Ted Goossen's profile page

Motoyuki Shibata's profile page

TED GOOSSEN teaches Japanese literature and film at York University in Toronto. He is the editor of The Oxford Book of Japanese Short Stories. He translated Haruki Murakami’s Wind/Pinball and The Strange Library, and co-translated (with Philip Gabriel) Men Without Women and Killing Commendatore. His translations of Hiromi Kawakami’s People from My Neighborhood (Granta Books and Soft Skull Press) and Naoya Shiga’s Reconciliation (Canongate) were published in 2020.

MOTOYUKI SHIBATA translates American literature and runs the Japanese literary journal MONKEY. He has translated Paul Auster, Rebecca Brown, Stuart Dybek, Steve Erickson, Brian Evenson, Laird Hunt, Kelly Link, Steven Millhauser, and Richard Powers, among others. His translation of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was a bestseller in Japan in 2018. Among his recent translations is Eric McCormack’s Cloud.

MONKEY is more fun than anything called literature has a right to be. Some of the most imaginative writing in the world just so happens to hail from Japan.” --Roland Kelts, Nikkei Asia

“An astonishment, by turns playful and profound” --Junot Diaz, author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

“MONKEY is full of deep, funny, wild, scary, fabulous, moving, surprising, brilliant work.” --Laird Hunt, author of Neverhome

“A sampler of Japanese literature in translation that gives you tastes of varied, sumptuous flavors.” --Eric Margolis, Tokyo Weekender