Christopher Barzak

Category: Japan

  • Loneliness in a crowd

    An interesting BBC News article on the loneliness that pervades despite a crowded Japan, and how some people deal with it: Loneliness is a problem faced by many people on these crowded islands. But the Japanese are prone to believe that, in the right circumstances, money can turn a stranger into a friend… at least…

  • Dreams

    Recently, Elizabeth Hand reviewed my new novel-in-stories and ferreted out a lot of influential material I’d been looking at and reading while I lived in Japan and wrote the book.  One film that she didn’t mention but was influential on the book nonetheless, particularly in its dreaminess and it’s own film-in-stories type of structure, was…

  • Mail from Japan

    My Japanese mom sent this picture to me today.  Apparently the new book has arrived at her doorstep earlier than it has here.  I love seeing this photo of the book, in Japan now, where I wrote it.  

  • Straight from the Underground, by Nitro Microphone Underground

    I think I was only in Japan for a few weeks before I found myself venturing out to media stores alone, trying to figure out what was all around me. So much of what we in America know of Japan isn’t contemporary Japan. Most books present Japan at various stages of its history, and seem…

  • Meanwhile, back in Japan

    But before I go, my Japanese mom sent pictures of the new issue of Hayakawa SF in Japan, which features stories by Barth Anderson, Ekaterina Sedia, Benjamin Rosenbaum, Holly Phillips, Alan Deniro, and myself. Here are pics of the magazine, and also the illustrations for Alan’s story, Tetrarchs (originally published in Strange Horizons), and my…

  • Double vision

    I’m in the midst of some final revisions to my next novel, so at the moment I’m sort of seeing double:  the snowy, cold Midwestern winter outside my window, and then something else like this inside. Here’s a less musical and more touristy depiction of Obon.

  • Sabishii

    After a night spent reading my journal from when I started it back in 2002 up until I came home from Japan in 2006, I can officially say that a.) I’m glad I’m no longer a twenty-something, b.) I’m SO glad I went to Japan and grew the hell up (well, at least a little)…

  • Beautiful useless things

    This article is yet more proof why Japan is a fantasy land without question.  I love the last line of dialogue reported in this sooo much.

  • The Love We Share Without Knowing

    I mentioned in a post the other day that I had more good news to share, and today it was announced.  My second novel will be coming out from Bantam Dell again.  Very excited, and very very happy that I’m working once again with Juliet Ulman, the editor who worked with me on One for…

  • Time Travel

    Today in class one of my freshman writing students raised his hand to ask me a question and started his sentence by calling me Mr. Chris.  For one brief moment, I was in a classroom of Japanese junior high kids.  Then I blinked and asked him to repeat his question.