Empfehlungen basierend auf "Amrita"

Kafka on the Shore follows the fortunes of two remarkable characters. Kafka Tamura runs away from home at fifteen, under the shadow of his father's dark prophesy. The aging Nakata, tracker of lost cats, who never recovered from a bizarre childhood affliction, finds his pleasantly simplified life suddenly turned upside down. Their parallel odysseys are enriched throughout by vivid accomplices and mesmerising dramas. Cats converse with people; fish tumble from the sky; a ghostlike pimp deploys a Hegel-spouting girl of the night; a forest harbours soldiers apparently un-aged since WWII. There is a savage killing, but the identity of both victim and killer is a riddle. Murakami's novel is at once a classic quest, but it is also a bold exploration of mythic and contemporary taboos, of patricide, of mother-love, of sister-love. Above all it is an entertainment of a very high order.

Vintage Readers are a perfect introduction to some of the greatest modern writers presented in attractive, accessible paperback editions. “Murakami’s bold willingness to go straight over the top is a signal indication of his genius. . . . A world-class writer who has both eyes open and takes big risks.” —The Washington Post Book World Not since Yukio Mishima and Yasunari Kawabata has a Japanese writer won the international acclaim enjoyed by Haruki Murakami. His genre-busting novels, short stories and reportage, which have been translated into 35 languages, meld the surreal and the hard-boiled, deadpan comedy and delicate introspection. Vintage Murakami includes the opening chapter of the international bestseller Norwegian Wood; “Lieutenant Mamiya’s Long Story: Parts I and II” from his monumental novel The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle; “Shizuko Akashi” from Underground, his non-fiction book on the Toyko subway attack of 1995; and the short stories “Barn Burning,” “Honeypie.” Also included, for the first time in book form, the short story, “Ice Man.”

In this literary tour de force, novelist Arthur Golden enters a remote and shimmeringly exotic world. For the protagonist of this peerlessly observant first novel is Sayuri, one of Japan's most celebrated geisha, a woman who is both performer and courtesan, slave and goddess.We follow Sayuri from her childhood in an impoverished fishing village, where in 1929, she is sold to a representative of a geisha house, who is drawn by the child's unusual blue-grey eyes. From there she is taken to Gion, the pleasure district of Kyoto. She is nine years old. In the years that follow, as she works to pay back the price of her purchase, Sayuri will be schooled in music and dance, learn to apply the geisha's elaborate makeup, wear elaborate kimono, and care for a coiffure so fragile that it requires a special pillow. She will also acquire a magnanimous tutor and a venomous rival. Surviving the intrigues of her trade and the upheavals of war, the resourceful Sayuri is a romantic heroine on the order of Jane Eyre and Scarlett O'Hara. And Memoirs of a Geisha is a triumphant work - suspenseful, and utterly persuasive.From the Trade Paperback edition.

Hiroshima-born Sadako is lively and athletic--the star of her school's running team. And then the dizzy spells start. Soon gravely ill with leukemia, the "atom bomb disease," Sadako faces her future with spirit and bravery. Recalling a Japanese legend, Sadako sets to work folding paper cranes. For the legend holds that if a sick person folds one thousand cranes, the gods will grant her wish and make her healthy again. Based on a true story, Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes celebrates the extraordinary courage that made one young woman a heroine in Japan.

When Hana worked up the courage to speak to the mysterious loner in her college class, she never expected the encounter would blossom into true lovenor that he was secretly a wolf living in human form. Their relationship was far from ordinary, but she wouldn’t have had it any other way. Her joy only grows with the births of Ame and Yuki, who have inherited their father’s unique ability to transform. But life is full of both joy and hardship, and Hana is left to bring up her little wolves on her own. Raising human children is hard enough…but how will she handle their wild side, too? In this novelization of his award-winning Wolf Children film, acclaimed director Mamoru Hosoda provides a deeper look at the emotional trials and triumphs of a very unique little family.

"A wonderful introduction the Japanese tradition of jisei, this volume is crammed with exquisite, spontaneous verse and pity, often hilarious, descriptions of the eccentric and committed monastics who wrote the poems." —Tricycle: The Buddhist ReviewAlthough the consciousness of death is, in most cultures, very much a part of life, this is perhaps nowhere more true than in Japan, where the approach of death has given rise to a centuries-old tradition of writing jisei, or the "death poem." Such a poem is often written in the very last moments of the poet's life.Hundreds of Japanese death poems, many with a commentary describing the circumstances of the poet's death, have been translated into English here, the vast majority of them for the first time. Yoel Hoffmann explores the attitudes and customs surrounding death in historical and present-day Japan and gives examples of how these have been reflected in the nation's literature in general. The development of writing jisei is then examined—from the poems of longing of the early nobility and the more "masculine" verses of the samurai to the satirical death poems of later centuries.Zen Buddhist ideas about death are also described as a preface to the collection of Chinese death poems by Zen monks that are also included. Finally, the last section contains three hundred twenty haiku, some of which have never been assembled before, in English translation and romanized in Japanese.

A bestseller in Japan--a beautiful story about shared self-discovery and friendship involving an unlikely group of students who decide to defy the odds and pursue a seemingly impossible goal together. After shoplifting some bread one chilly March night, just before the start of a new academic year at Kansei University in western Tokyo, former high school track and field star Kakeru Kurahara runs through the city streets. Though he has grown disillusioned with the sport, he feels as if he could keep running forever . . . but to where, and for what His revery is broken by a mysterious boy on a bike who has been following him, a fellow student at Kansei University named Haiji Kiyose, who also happens to be a runner. Impressed by Kakeru's agility, Haiji Kiyose persuades Kakeru to move into Chikusei-so, a run-down dormitory where he lives with eight other boys, including identical twins Jota and Joji, honor student Shindo, detail-oriented Yuki, trivia junkie King, Tanzanian international student Musa, nicotine-loving Nico, and manga otaku Prince. None of the students know that Chikusei-so is the historic home of the Kansei University Track and Field team. At Kakeru's welcoming party, Kiyose reveals his grand plan: assembling a 10-man team of runners to compete in the Hakone Ekiden, a legendary college marathon relay race. Except for Kakeru and Kiyose, the Chikusei-so gang aren't athletic--or interested in competing. But Kiyose's enthusiasm wins them over and they agree to this crazy plan. Over the course of ten months, this ragtag team will put aside their differences to pursue an elusive dream . . . and gain so much more than they ever expected. Heartfelt and inspiring, Run with the Wind is a thrilling celebration of what it means to run--for yourself, for others, and with the wind. Translated from the Japanese by Yui Kajita

Hospitalized with the dreaded atom bomb disease, leukemia, a child in Hiroshima races against time to fold one-thousand paper cranes.

A classic spy novel from the bestselling author, Trevanian, about a westerner raised in Japan who becomes one of the world's most accomplished assassins. Nicholai Hel is the world’s most wanted man. Born in Shanghai during the chaos of World War I, he is the son of an aristocratic Russian mother and a mysterious German father and is the protégé of a Japanese Go master. Hel survived the destruction of Hiroshima to emerge as the world’s most artful lover and its most accomplished—and well-paid—assassin. Hel is a genius, a mystic, and a master of language and culture, and his secret is his determination to attain a rare kind of personal excellence, a state of effortless perfection known only as shibumi. Now living in an isolated mountain fortress with his exquisite mistress, Hel is unwillingly drawn back into the life he’d tried to leave behind when a beautiful young stranger arrives at his door, seeking help and refuge. It soon becomes clear that Hel is being tracked by his most sinister enemy—a supermonolith of international espionage known only as the Mother Company. The battle lines are drawn: ruthless power and corruption on one side, and on the other . . . shibumi.

The internationally bestselling author of the beloved Morisaki Bookshop series welcomes us back to the Torunka Café, down a narrow side street in the Tokyo neighborhood of Yakata, run by its stern-seeming owner, Tachibana, and his teenage daughter Shizuku. Stopping in for a cup of coffee or a sweet treat at the Torunka Café, locals and tourists from all stages and walks of life experience interactions and small miracles that unexpectedly offer joy and connection. A little old lady named Chiyoko Obāchan sits alone in a corner with her balls of yarn and knitting needles. One day, hearing a Chopin melody playing in the café she is reminded of the days of her lost youth, when she fell in love for the first time. Shizuku's childhood friend Kōta is fiercely protective and believes he's responsible for keep her safe. But as he confronts the limits of his own strength, he finds help in a surprising place when a film crew arrives at the café's door. Ayako, a quotation-loving illustrator, is at a crossroads, feeling burned out by her career yet not knowing what direction to take next. Then, a chance encounter with an old friend changes everything. Charming and delightfully heartwarming, More Days at the Torunka Café is a delicious and satisfying slice of life in all its flavor. Wise and endearing, it reminds us that all our lives are threads in the beautiful and wondrous tapestry of humanity.