- Sayaka Murata's 2016 Akutagawa winner, Convenience Store Woman, led the recent boom in translated Japanese fiction. Her stories dissect how society's expectations don't stand up to scrutiny. Her protagonists seem oddball, but she claims anxieties about "not being human enough" are "very normal".
- Check out RJL'sreading project for #JanuaryinJapan 2026. 31 days of free-to-read short stories or excerpts from novels, encompassing a short history of modern Japanese fiction. I'll post a new short story every day, and you're welcome to read along!