Until recently the only Japanese writer I read was Haruki Murakami who gave me the impression that there were no other writers in Japan worth reading. Last Sunday I found a book by another Japanese writer who Graham Greene described as ‘one of the finest living novelists’ which is what I saw on the cover of ‘Wonderful Fool’ that I picked up on a shelf at Abids. Finding this book by another Japanese writer made me feel how silly my impression was. I had earlier heard the name Sushaku Endo but did not make the effort to find out who he/she was or of what nationality.
After finding ‘Wonderful Fool’ by Shusaku Endo I felt lucky to have discovered another good writer. It made me feel quite ignorant not to have known about Endo and his books before. But I also felt quite lucky at having spotted this book and also pleased that I could get it for only sixty rupees. I was quite surprised to read that Sushaku Endo had been in the contending for the Nobel since quite a few years but hasn’t yet won it. However, after I read the reviews of some of his books online I was convinced I had found a good book.
Another find of Sunday at Abids was ‘The Valachi Papers’ by Joe Valachi. After reading ‘The Godfather’ by Mario Puzo and ‘Casino Moon’ by Peter Blauner I wanted to read more about the Mafia but did not know where to look. I had read about ‘The Valachi Papers’ somewhere that I do not recollect now but I know that it had something to do about the Mafia. I bought this book for twenty rupees. With this book my total haul for the year so far comes to 65. This total includes Chitra Viraraghavan’s ‘The Americans’ that I bought on Friday last at its launch in Hyderabad.
1 comment:
It's funny that I also haven't read a Japanese author other than Murakami yet. Hopefully will correct this after your blog post.
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