Now In English! Modern Japanese Literature

Title: Modern Japanese Literature: From 1868 to the Present Day

Author: Various

Translators: Sam Houston Brock, Robert H. Brower, Harold G. Henderson, Howard Hibbon, Glenn Hughes, Baroness Shidzut Ishimoto, Yozan T. Iwasaki, Donald Keene, Ivan Morris, W.H.H. Norman, Shio Sakanishi, G.W. Sargent, Edward Seidensticker, Burton Watson, and Meredith Weatherby. 

Editor: Donald Keene

NIE! World Poetry: An Anthology of Verse from Antiquity to Our Time

There are times when a reader runs out of books. When she is shuffling around the library, trying to pick out a new title to take home. This quest can be many times more difficult if she is searching for a translated work - a category that probably does not have its own section.

One solution is to seek out an anthology. And one of the best anthologies I've ever purchased is World Poetry: An Anthology of Verse from Antiquity to Our Time, edited by Clifton Fadiman, John S. Major and Katharine Washburn. This volume, composed of 1376 pages of sweet and tumultuous words, will be one book you will not regret reading.

Now in English! "Balika Badhu": a Bengali Anthology

What began as Monish Ranjan Chatterjee’s project to translate ‘The Adolescent Bride’ (‘Balika Badhu’) by Bimal Kar, later became an anthology of Bengali short stories. Balika Badhu: A representative anthology of Bengali short stories spans just over 300 pages. But while it is very cohesive, it is not quite representative. Chatterjee says so much in the introduction. Although all the pieces are well paced and the writers well known in the West Bengal, no woman writer was included. This is an imperfection that the translator points out almost immediately, but regardless, this anthology is certainly worth reading.