A dream-like Tokyo is in the grip of a brutal predator. A sadistic killer who turns his victims into works of art; then leaves letters behind taunting his pursuers. The police are clueless. The brilliant criminologist on his trail is always one step behind. Can anyone stop this phantom before he completes his hellish masterpiece? First published in 1929, this is the second full-length novel to feature the private detective Akechi Kogoro. Born as Hirai Tarō, Edogawa Ranpo (1894-1965) was an influential author and critic known for his tales of the mysterious and macabre. His pseudonym is a rendering of ‘Edgar Allen Poe’ using Japanese characters. Ranpo often dealt with themes of sexual perversion and the grotesque, as well as writing more conventional detective stories. Alexis J Brown is a translator living in London.
A mournful flute plays in the dead of night; its dreadful lament, a harbinger of chaos and destruction. The Conjurer must be close at hand. But why is this maniacal killer intent on terrorising a law-abiding family of wealthy jewellers? First published between 1930 and 1931, this is the fourth full-length novel to feature the private detective Akechi Kogoro, and the first in which he plays a central role from the beginning. Born as Hirai Tarō, Edogawa Ranpo (1894-1965) was an influential author and critic known for his tales of the mysterious and macabre. His pseudonym is a rendering of ‘Edgar Allen Poe’ using Japanese characters. Ranpo often dealt with themes of sexual perversion and the grotesque, as well as writing more conventional detective stories. Alexis J Brown is a translator living in London.
A nightmarish tale of deception, depravity and death, in which no one can be trusted. A fantastical game of cat and mouse played out on the streets of an other-worldly pre-war Tokyo. First published in 1930, this is the third full-length novel to feature the private detective Akechi Kogoro. Born as Hirai Tarō, Edogawa Ranpo (1894-1965) was an influential author and critic known for his tales of the mysterious and macabre. His pseudonym is a rendering of ‘Edgar Allen Poe’ using Japanese characters. Ranpo often dealt with themes of sexual perversion and the grotesque, as well as writing more conventional detective stories. Alexis J Brown is a translator living in London.
The creature’s face was unforgettable. Vacant eyes, a hollowed-out nose, and a red snarling maw. For the young heiress, who catches her first glimpse of this lipless monster through a steamy bathhouse window, its appearance signals the start of her own voyage into the depths of hell. First published in 1930 (Japanese title "吸血鬼", or "The Vampire") this is the fifth full-length Akechi Kogoro novel and the first to feature the boy detective Kobayashi. Born as Hirai Tarō, Edogawa Ranpo (1894-1965) was an influential author and critic known for his tales of the mysterious and macabre. His pseudonym is a rendering of Edgar Allen Poe using Japanese characters. Ranpo often dealt with themes of sexual perversion and the grotesque, as well as writing more conventional crime fiction. Alexis J Brown is a translator living in London.
Edogawa Ranpo (1894-1965) was a great admirer of Edgar Allan Poe and like Poe drew on his penchant for the grotesque and the bizarre to explore the boundaries of conventional thought. Best known as the founder of the modern Japanese detective novel, Ranpo wrote for a youthful audience, and a taste for playacting and theatre animates his stories. His writing is often associated with the era of ero guro nansense (erotic grotesque nonsense), which accompanied the rise of mass culture and mass media in urban Japan in the 1920s. Characterized by an almost lurid fascination with simulacra and illusion, the era’s sensibility permeates Ranpo's first major work and one of his finest achievements, Strange Tale of Panorama Island (Panoramato kidan), published in 1926. Ranpo’s panorama island is filled with cleverly designed optical illusions: a staircase rises into the sky; white feathered “birds” speak in women’s voices and offer to serve as vehicles; clusters of naked men and women romp on slopes carpeted with rainbow-colored flowers. His fantastical utopia is filled with entrancing music and strange sweet odors, and nothing is ordinary, predictable, or boring. The novella reflected the new culture of mechanically produced simulated realities (movies, photographs, advertisements, stereoscopic and panoramic images) and focused on themes of the doppelganger and appropriated identities: its main character steals the identity of an acquaintance. The novella’s utopian vision, argues translator Elaine Gerbert, mirrors the expansionist dreams that fed Japan's colonization of the Asian continent, its ending an eerie harbinger of the collapse of those dreams. Today just as a new generation of technologies is transforming the way we think—and becoming ever more invasive and pervasive—Ranpo's work is attracting a new generation of readers. In the past few decades his writing has inspired films, anime, plays, and manga, and many translations of his stories, essays, and novels have appeared, but to date no English-language translation of Panoramato kidan has been available. This volume, which includes a critical introduction and notes, fills that gap and uncovers for English-language readers an important new dimension of an ever stimulating, provocative talent.
The year is 1953. The Korean War is winding down. The Cold War is heating up. UFOs are appearing all over the world. Five flying saucers zoom across the skies of Tokyo. Then Ichiro Hirano's next-door neighbor is kidnapped by an alien lizard creature. That same creature is now stalking Ichiro's own sister. What do these space aliens hope to accomplish? Here again is the kind of mystery that only Kogoro Akechi and the Boy Detectives Club can hope to solve.
This collection of mystery and horror stories is regarded as Japan's answer to Edgar Allan Poe. Japanese Tales of Mystery & Imagination, the first volume of its kind translated into English, is written with the quick tempo of the West but rich with the fantasy of the East. These nine bloodcurdling, chilling tales present a genre of literature largely unknown to readers outside Japan, including the strange story of a quadruple amputee and his perverse wife; the record of a man who creates a mysterious chamber of mirrors and discovers hidden pleasures within; the morbid confession of a maniac who envisions a career of foolproof "psychological" murders; and the bizarre tale of a chair-maker who buries himself inside an armchair and enjoys the sordid "loves" of the women who sit on his handiwork. Lucid and packed with suspense, Edogawa Rampo's stories found in Japanese Tales of Mystery & Imagination have enthralled Japanese readers for over half a century. Mystery stories include: The Human Chair The Caterpillar Two Crippled Men The Traveler with the Pasted Rag Picture
This collection of mystery and horror stories is regarded as Japan's answer to Edgar Allan Poe. Japanese Tales of Mystery & Imagination, the first volume of its kind translated into English, is written with the quick tempo of the West but rich with the fantasy of the East. These nine bloodcurdling, chilling tales present a genre of literature largely unknown to readers outside Japan, including the strange story of a quadruple amputee and his perverse wife; the record of a man who creates a mysterious chamber of mirrors and discovers hidden pleasures within; the morbid confession of a maniac who envisions a career of foolproof "psychological" murders; and the bizarre tale of a chair-maker who buries himself inside an armchair and enjoys the sordid "loves" of the women who sit on his handiwork. Lucid and packed with suspense, Edogawa Rampo's stories found in Japanese Tales of Mystery & Imagination have enthralled Japanese readers for over half a century. Mystery stories include: The Human Chair The Caterpillar Two Crippled Men The Traveler with the Pasted Rag Picture
A love story that explores the mechanics of the heart and humankind's inevitable evolution. One Love Chigusa by Soji Shimada, one of Japan's most famous authors, is a tale of obsessive love in a world where technology has crept into the very heart of humanity. The year is 2091 AD. A horrendous motorcycle accident leaves Xie Hoyu coming to terms with his new cybernetic body. Reconstructed from the latest biomechanical prosthetics, he is discharged from hospital and tries to return to his life as an illustrator after many weeks in recovery. While surgery saves his life, existence for Xie has lost all meaning. His saviour comes in the form of a girl with whom Xie falls hopelessly in love. But not all is as it seems. Translated by Sir David Warren, a retired diplomat and former British ambassador to Japan, One Love Chigusa offers a glimpse into a possible future and questions the purpose of humanity in a manner that only Japan's master of the postmodern whodunnit can do. Red Circle Minis: Original, Short and Compelling Reads One Love Chigusa is part of Red Circle Minis, a series of short captivating books by Japan's finest contemporary writers that brings the narratives and voices of Japan together as never before. Each book is a first edition written specifically for the series and is being published in English first.
