Read Japanese Literature

Today, we’re talking about crime and mystery novels from Japan. We’ll start with the development of the crime and mystery genre in the English-speaking world. We’ll move on to Japanese crime and mystery writing—how it was inspired by Anglo-American crime and mystery writing and how it evolved in its own way. And we’ll end with the life and work of writer Seishi Yokomizo, especially his novel The Honjin Murders, translated into English by Louise Heal Kawai.

Notes and sources on the episode page. Transcript available.

CW: murder (obviously!) and a brief mention of a fictional character’s narcotics addiction

(Apologies for small pronunciation issues of English and French surnames. They’ve been corrected in the transcript.)

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