Category: Nick Bradley

Nick Bradley is a graduate of both the MA in Creative Writing Prose, and the PhD in Creative and Critical Writing at UEA. His PhD thesis focussed on the figure of the cat in Japanese literature. He lived and worked in Japan on and off for a decade, and speaks Japanese fluently. His debut novel The Cat and The City, which follows the adventures of a stray cat in Tokyo, was published by Atlantic Books in June 2020 and is currently being translated into multiple languages. It was chosen for the BBC Radio 2 Book Club, and has received praise in The Times and the Guardian amongst others.

‘Tattoo’ by Tanizaki Jun’ichirō, translated by Ivan Morris

A twisted tattooist finds the perfect human canvas on which to tattoo a spider. The joke’s on him, of course…

First published in Japanese 1910.  Collected in Modern Japanese Short Stories, Tuttle 2019. Read a different translation by Howard Hibbett under the title ‘The Tattooer’ available for PDF download here, or as ‘The Victim’ in the Paris Review here

‘I Am a Novelist’ by Murakami Ryū, translated by Ralph McCarthy

Murakami Ryū is so compelling. This has an amazing premise, too – a writer gets a call from a hostess club where someone has been impersonating him, running up a massive drinks tab, and having an affair with one of the hostesses at the club.

First published in Japanese in the collection Run, Takahashi! in 1986.. Collected in Tokyo Decadence: 15 Stories, Kurodahan Press 2016. I cannot find a version of this online, but apparently it’s available to subscribers of The New Yorker through online archives… I think…

‘The Second Bakery Attack’ by Murakami Haruki, translated by Jay Rubin

It was literally impossible to pick one short story from Murakami Haruki. I thought about picking just 12 from him alone. Thinking about it, I should’ve picked ‘Silence’. But I didn’t. Whoops.

First published in Japanese 1986. Included in The Elephant Vanishes, Vintage 2003. Available to read online here

‘A Clean Marriage’ by Murata Sayaka, translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori

You might know her from Convenience Store Woman, but this was my first exposure to Murata Sayaka. An asexual man and woman get together with the understanding that there will be no sex in this marriage, thank you very much.

First published as part of the collection Satsujin shussan, Kodansha 2014. First published in English in Granta 127: Japan in 2014, and available to read online here

‘Enoki’ by Matsuda Aoko, translated by Polly Barton

I love Matsuda Aoko’s writing. I wanted to choose The Girl Who Is Getting Married (part of the Keshiki series of chapbooks from Strangers Press), but I thought I’d pick something people can read online instead.

First published in Japanese in 2018. Included in Where the Wild Ladies Are, Tilted Axis 2020. Available to read online here

‘The Magic Chalk’ by Abe Kōbō, translated by Alison Kibrick

I read this story years and years ago when I first lived in Japan. I haven’t re-read it since, but I remember it blew my socks off. A guy finds a piece of magic chalk and draws a door to another universe on his apartment wall. A bit like that cartoon Penny Crayon.

First published in Japanese 1950. Collected in The Shōwa Anthology: Modern Japanese Short Stories, Kodansha 1992. Available to read online here

‘Come Out’ by Hoshi Shin’ichi, translated by Stanleigh Jones

Hoshi Shin’ichi is awesome. I feel like he deserves to be translated into English more than he currently is. He writes these great Sci-Fi short, short stories. This one is a sort of morality tale about the environment (and an increasingly relevant one).

First published in Japanese 1957 and available in the collection Bokko-chan in Japanese. Available here and there online: On someone’s blog here or there’s a weird scanned version here

‘The Bridegroom Was a Dog’ by Tawada Yōko, translated by Margaret Misutani

In Japanese literature, you often get these long short stories which are part of a mini-collection. This is one of those. I remember really enjoying this story when I read it ­– I remember it being narrated by the town, following the exploits of one woman who lives there.

Included in The Bridegroom Was a Dog, New Directions 2012 or Kodansha 1998

‘The House of the Sleeping Beauties’ by Kawabata Yasunari, translated by Edward Seidensticker

Similar to ‘The Bridegroom Was a Dog’ mentioned above, this is also a long short story available in a mini-collection form. But this is just about the creepiest, weirdest story I’ve ever read. An older man pays to sleep next to a young woman at a weird brothel-esque house for narcoleptics.

First published in Japanese 1961. Included in The House of Sleeping Beauties and Other Stories, Vintage International 2017