A Real Novel
Volume 1 & 2

Honkaku Shosetsu
Jo & Ge
Shinchosha, 2002

About A Real Novel: Synopsis and Excerpts

Prologue

A Real Novel comprises two parts: a long prologue, one fifth of the entire book, and the main novel. The prologue is presented as an account of the author's life in the United States and of her numerous direct and indirect encounters with Taro, the central character in the main novel. In the following excerpt, Minae, the author, recalls how she first met him.

A Personal Novel

Shishosetsu
from left to right
Shinchosha, 1995

Writers, as you know, are self-indulgent people. Even the minor ones happily assume that their work and what they have to say about it are of great interest to everyone, including, of course, the distinguished (and soon-to-be distinguished) scholars of literature like yourselves. I don't claim to be an exception. I will be commenting today on my own novel, A Personal Novel, published in 1995. And I will indulge myself so far as to argue that my novel addresses, or at least tries to address, a very fundamental question: What does it mean to be a writer in Japanese in this day and age?

Light and Darkness, Continued

Zoku Meian
Chikuma Shobo, 1990

Letters with Bookmarks Attached

Tegami, Shiori wo Soete
Asahi Shimbunsha, 1997