Factbook

A Dynamic Compendium of Interesting Japanese Literary and Publishing Facts

If you would like to contribute to this compendium please submit your ideas here.
All will be considered for publication by our expert panel.

Category Index:

Factbook Keyword Search:
Search for:

The complete works of Shakespeare were published in Japanese translation in 1928 for the first time[UPDATED: 2-18-2026]

In 1928 Shoyo Tsubouchi (1859-1935), a Japanese writer and translator and professor at Waseda University, who is famous for many things including first proposing that the term shosetsu be adopted as the standard Japanese translation for the English word novel, completed the first ever translation of the complete… Read more »
- TOPICS:
- Shakespeare
The complete works of Shakespeare were published in Japanese translation in 1928 for the first time Posted February 18th, 2026 by Richard Nathan
Japan’s first portable ‘Reading Device’ was invented in 747[UPDATED: 2-18-2026]

Legend has it that in the reign of Emperor Tenji (626-672), Japan’s 38th emperor, the discovery of a dead bat with burnt wings inspired a Japanese craftsman to make a prototype that was in fact the world’s first functioning folding fan. Still it is hard to… Read more »
- TOPICS:
- History
Japan’s first portable ‘Reading Device’ was invented in 747 Posted February 18th, 2026 by Richard Nathan
Japan’s most famous filmmaker, Akira Kurosawa, ranked ‘Sanshiro’ by Natsume Soseki above all other novels written by a Japanese author[UPDATED: 2-18-2026]

Akira Kurosawa (1910-1998), Japan’s most famous film director who loved and valued reading, is known to have had one all-time favourite book: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910), but his favourite book by a Japanese author was Natsume Soseki’s (1867-1916) Sanshiro. Sanshiro was originally… Read more »
- TOPICS:
Japan’s most famous filmmaker, Akira Kurosawa, ranked ‘Sanshiro’ by Natsume Soseki above all other novels written by a Japanese author Posted February 18th, 2026 by Richard Nathan
Cinderella-type stories about dysfunctional stepmother and stepchild relationships don’t generally feature in the early canon of Japanese literature and are considered a Western literary import[UPDATED: 2-18-2026]

According to Chieko Ikie Mulhern at the University of Illinois, the earliest Japanese story that features persecution and stepchildren is the 10th century Ochikubo Monogatari, The Tale of Lady Ochibuko. However, in its case, she argues, that despite often being compared to Cinderella due to… Read more »
- TOPICS:
Cinderella-type stories about dysfunctional stepmother and stepchild relationships don’t generally feature in the early canon of Japanese literature and are considered a Western literary import Posted February 18th, 2026 by Richard Nathan
New post-war regulations governing the use of the Japanese language in print led to the re-branding of detective fiction in Japan[UPDATED: 2-18-2026]

Crime fiction has a very long history in Japan and early Western visitors to the nation at the end the 19th century, including the famous Victorian travel writer Isabella Bird (1831-1904), commented on the large number of crime fiction titles on sale in Japan in… Read more »
- TOPICS:
- Soji Shimada
- Crime
- Mystery
New post-war regulations governing the use of the Japanese language in print led to the re-branding of detective fiction in Japan Posted February 18th, 2026 by Richard Nathan
A group of post-war Japanese authors dubbed ‘The Decadents’ established a publishing genre called ‘Flesh Literature’[UPDATED: 8-8-2025]

A group of Japanese eccentrics and misfits, all members of the so-called Buraiha literary group, The Decadents, including authors such as Osamu Dazai (1909-1948) sometimes dubbed the bad boy of Japanese literature, Jun Ishikawa (1899-1987), Sakunosuke Oda (1913-1947), and Ango Sakaguchi (1906-1955) – who still… Read more »
- TOPICS:
A group of post-war Japanese authors dubbed ‘The Decadents’ established a publishing genre called ‘Flesh Literature’ Posted August 8th, 2025 by Richard Nathan
Western Authors have been trying to decode and explain the mysteries of ‘Unfathomable Japan’ for over 100 years[UPDATED: 4-18-2025]

The Nobel Prize committee cited Rudyard Kipling’s (1865-1936) writing on the manners and customs of the Japanese when they awarded him his Nobel prize in 1907.Kipling, an English journalist and author of books including The Jungle Book, visited Japan in 1889 and 1892. No other leading English literary figure… Read more »
- TOPICS:
- History
- On Japan
- Prizes
Western Authors have been trying to decode and explain the mysteries of ‘Unfathomable Japan’ for over 100 years Posted April 18th, 2025 by Richard Nathan
The publication of ‘The Tokyo Zodiac Murders’ in 1981 helped rebrand whodunnits in Japan and launch a new genre known as Shin-Honkaku mysteries, neoclassical mysteries[UPDATED: 4-18-2025]

The publication in 1981 of The Tokyo Zodiac Murders, by Soji Shimada, generated a boom in whodunnits in Japan and a reappraisal of the somewhat out-of-favour and often derided genre, known locally as honkaku mysteries, classical, authentic or orthodox mysteries, which had often been looked… Read more »
- TOPICS:
- Soji Shimada
- Crime Fiction
The publication of ‘The Tokyo Zodiac Murders’ in 1981 helped rebrand whodunnits in Japan and launch a new genre known as Shin-Honkaku mysteries, neoclassical mysteries Posted April 18th, 2025 by Richard Nathan

Factbook

The complete works of Shakespeare were published in Japanese translation in 1928 for the first time[UPDATED: 2-18-2026]

Japan’s first portable ‘Reading Device’ was invented in 747[UPDATED: 2-18-2026]

Japan’s most famous filmmaker, Akira Kurosawa, ranked ‘Sanshiro’ by Natsume Soseki above all other novels written by a Japanese author[UPDATED: 2-18-2026]

Cinderella-type stories about dysfunctional stepmother and stepchild relationships don’t generally feature in the early canon of Japanese literature and are considered a Western literary import[UPDATED: 2-18-2026]

New post-war regulations governing the use of the Japanese language in print led to the re-branding of detective fiction in Japan[UPDATED: 2-18-2026]

A group of post-war Japanese authors dubbed ‘The Decadents’ established a publishing genre called ‘Flesh Literature’[UPDATED: 8-8-2025]

Western Authors have been trying to decode and explain the mysteries of ‘Unfathomable Japan’ for over 100 years[UPDATED: 4-18-2025]

The publication of ‘The Tokyo Zodiac Murders’ in 1981 helped rebrand whodunnits in Japan and launch a new genre known as Shin-Honkaku mysteries, neoclassical mysteries[UPDATED: 4-18-2025]

Newsletters