Hip new line of modern literature from Japan is 'un-put-downable'
San Francisco Chronicle | April 4
....Vertical Inc., an upstart New York publisher that hopes to introduce millions of American readers -- notoriously resistant to foreign translations -- to Japanese pop fiction. "Our books are simply un-put-downable," Vertical's editorial director, Ioannis Mentzas...Japan's literary scene has also been transformed by contemporary Japanese writers like Banana Yoshimoto and Haruki Murakami, who weave tales around such wide-ranging subjects as food-obsessed orphans and mutant sheep.
"I remember buying some really old classical literature in Tokyo recently, ".... "The clerk said, 'Oh, you read this stuff?' Almost no one is paying any attention to those kinds of materials anymore."
