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 Waiting Years by Fumiko Enchi
The Old Capital by Yasunari Kawabata
How Do You Live? by Genzaburo Yoshino
The Silent Cry by Kenzaburō Ōe
Fires on the Plain by Shōhei Ōoka
The Three-Cornered World by Natsume Sōseki
When I Whistle by Shūsaku Endō
Spring Snow by Yukio Mishima
The Woman in the Dunes by Kōbō Abe
The Sound of the Mountain by Yasunari Kawabata
Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids by Kenzaburō Ōe
The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa
No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai
Shipwrecks by Akira Yoshimura
The Gate by Natsume Sōseki
The Face of Another by Kōbō Abe
Sweet Bean Paste by Durian Sukegawa
Kappa by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
🎌 Do you read Japanese literature? What is the best Japanese novel you’ve read? Or, what is your favourite?
