Each year, more than 600 bookstore employees across Japan select the winner of the Japan Bookseller’s Award, an esteemed literary prize recognizing the best contemporary novelists writing in Japanese. We’re thrilled to bring you books by the authors our colleagues across the world have elected: their top 10 for 2022 and recent years in beautiful Japanese-language editions, plus a selection of English translations here — books by Haruki Murakami, Yōko Ogawa, Banana Yoshimoto, and more.

Thank you to the Japan Society of Boston for helping us create this new in-store and online offering. We couldn’t be more delighted to showcase this prominent literary award and to welcome our Japanese-speaking neighbors into Booksmith’s beloved community of readers.

Coming soon to Booksmith: a permanent display of bestselling contemporary literature from Japan — in Japanese and English across a wide range of genres: fiction, nonfiction, manga, kids’ and more.

“No one can erase the stories!” ―Yōko Ogawa, The Memory Police