20 Best Japanese Novels I’ve Read

Below is the list of twenty best Japanese novels I have read so far. At first, I wanted to review either How Can My Manager Be So Stupid? [2019/26] by Hayami Kazumasa or Dinner at the Night Library [2023/25] by Hika Harada, but neither of these books engaged me enough to write a proper review, so, instead, I have decided to look back at the Japanese books I have read, and pick out those that stayed with me for one reason or another, making this list of best Japanese novels (I have reviewed eleven out of the twenty below). I still want to read quite a number of books by Shūsaku Endō and Natsume Sōseki, so this list is not final, but rather a work in-progress. I am excluding manga, short stories and non-fiction. One caveat, though, is that I don’t get along with the hugely popular Haruki Murakami, nor with the fiction of Junichirō Tanizaki, though I love his essay In Praise of Shadows. The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu Silence by Shūsaku Endō The Old Capital by Yasunari Kawabata When I Whistle by Shūsaku Endō Spring Snow by Yukio Mishima The Sound of the Mountain by Yasunari Kawabata No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai The Gate by Natsume Sōseki Kappa by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa 🎌 Do you r...