>>314835410>Which books would you recommend?Russian or Japanese?
My favorite Russian authors are very much the most obvious classics: Dostojevskij is pure genius (I strongly recommend a short story by him called The Meek One in particular), Chekhov, Gorky, Pushkin, Bulgakov (my personal favorite one), Zamyatin and a lesser know author named Platonov. I also do very much like Solzhenitsyn, but that is more for psychological and philosophical reasons.
Also, if you want to try something REALLY hardcore, go and find a book called Naked Pioneer Girl by Kononov. It's one of the only two books I've refused to finish reading because of just how completely revolting and disgusting it was.
Keep in mind that for english translation, the age of the main protagonist has been silently changed from 12 to 15.
As for Japanese: my favorites are:
Naoya Shiga
Kobo Abe
Masuji Ibuse
Yasunari Kawabata
Ryonosuke Akutagawa
I can't decide if my all time favorite is Kawabata or Ibuse - Ibuse wrote Black Rain, the most immersive book I've ever read, but Kawabata wrote Ise Penisula and Voice of Mountain, which were so damn good!
By the way, almost all of the aformentioned Japanese authors were influenced by Russian literature, many of the actually studied Russian studies for at least a while.
Again, if you want to try something hardcore, try Tanizaki and his Diary of an old Man after you've read Voice of the Mountain. It's a fun little contrast.
>>314835481You are entirely right, most of the authors I had in mind wrote mostly post-war, but the movement was formed before the war.
