'A Mature Woman': A welcome escape from the dominance of introspective, confessional narratives in contemporary Japanese literature

Praised by Nobel Prize winner Kenzaburo Oe and winner of the Foreign Fiction Prize of The Independent Newspaper, the 1993 novel by Saiichi Maruya was a welcome escape from the dominance of introspective, confessional narratives in contemporary Japanese literature.

Influenced by the ability of the contemporary English novel to deal with serious, yet weighty subjects with a light, satirical touch, Maruya's work focuses on the works....