Vertical

While in Canada I’ve been picking up THE GLOBE AND MAIL (one of Canada’s national newspapers) on Saturdays, and this past weekend the book section had a big review of 3 Japanese novels that have just been translated and released in North America through a new publisher, Vertical, that was started by a Japanese man who wants to bring popular Japanese fiction to the American masses. The 3 releases reviewed were Koji Suzuki’s RING (the movie was based on this novel), Kenzo Kitakata’s ASHES (a hard-boiled portrait of a gangster) and TWINKLE TWINKLE by Kaori Ekuni (who is compared to Banana Yoshimoto). It’s nice to see this, and I look forward to future releases from Vertical (check the site for info on lots of promising reads).