An odd, unsettling collection of short stories from the author of The Nakano Thrift Shop and Strange Weather in Tokyo. I would say it has some similarities to Sayaka Murata's recent collection Life Ceremony, but it turns out that Kawakami's book was first published in 2002. This new translation is by Ted Goossen.

The first story in the book features a man who used to be an octopus and the narrator keeps buying him dinners of squid. This is the kind of thing you are getting into if you read it. The stories only get stranger after that. Magic realism is probably the genre which best describes it. I also found the same themes which are commonly present in Japanese literature: ancestors, age differences, work, food and dysfunctional relationships.

I wouldn't say I loved this book, but I found it intriguing and inventive.

I just don´t think this is the genre for me! I really have a hard time with short format books. I feel like as soon as i got comfortable with the characters the story is alredy finished and that´s exactly how i felt regarding this book and it´s short storys.

Hiromi Kawakami first caught my attention with People from My Neighborhood, a series of over thirty ‘palm of the hand’ stories told from the perspective of a woman as she walks through memories of her childhood in a small Japanese town, at times stooping down to examine a crack in the sidewalk, at times coming across a viewpoint and stopping to regard the landscape. Whether it’s The House on Mango Street or the Neapolitan Novels, I am a big fan of stories that are rooted in a neighborhood and its residents; they tend to feel comforting, a cloud of relationships and lore and gossip that welcomes you into its midst. But People from My Neighborhood offers much more than the quaint nostalgia that is promised by its cutesy cover, with its pastel palette, bonsai tress, and dollhouse figures. In “Brains,” the story that first converted me into a Kawakami fan, the quiet older sister of the protagonist’s best friend reveals herself to be a collector of doll brains. The oddities continue to multiply—a man has two shadows, the local school observes a no-gravity day, a stinky white dove turns into a man—as the narrative stretches into the future, sometimes by as much as twenty years, before ebbing back to the narrator’s childhood.

Originally published in 2002, the eight stories that make up Dragon Palace come from an early stage of Kawakami’s writing career, more than a decade before she wrote People from My Neighborhood. Kawakami’s famous works tend to center on humans caught in dreamscapes where the absurd and the surreal are presented as everyday through direct, simple sentences; one reviewer has described Kawakami’s style as “nonchalant magical realism.” These same quirks course through the stories in Dragon Palace, but they also display a trend of Kawakami’s nascent style: her fascination with animals and creatures over humans. Reflecting on this shift in her writing, Kawakami remarks, “In retrospect, I think choosing a human vehicle would have locked me within the conventional boundaries of the ‘human,’ whereas creating characters who were not human on the surface but had underlying humanlike aspects freed me to think outside the box, separate from those conventions. … Once I had broken through some of those ‘human’ conventions in Dragon Palace, my characters in later works became people in both body and spirit; though deep down they may well still be octopuses, moles, and foxes. How mysterious people are!”

Even as she writes about talking octopuses, moles, and foxes—and yes, these all figure prominently in Dragon Palace—the mysterious nature of people is the true subject of Kawakami’s writing. In “Mole,” we delve into the first-person narration of a mole who has taken up an office day job and who moonlights as a collector of depressed humans; throughout, he holds up a mirror to our way of life, making such remarks as “humans are so filled with loathing, yet so lacking in ways to get it out” and “their laughter means something else.” In “Hokusai,” a shape-shifting octopus-man finds our aimless and speechless narrator on a beach and teaches him how to act like a human: “When water is spilled, it’s gone—you can’t put it back in the pot. Bear that in mind!” Like its shoplifting narrator, “The Kitchen God” peels stucco from the wall to reveal the close links between domesticity and madness, between the creature under the sink and the blank chaos of one’s mind. “Shimazaki” explores two of the biggest relationship taboos—an age gap and incest—but turns out to be a surprisingly tender story that is sure to resonate with fans of Strange Weather in Tokyo.

Kawakami’s writing is at its best when its absurdism is not self-serving but leads the reader somewhere, serves some higher purpose. In People from My Neighborhood, the spirit of community courses through each minuscule story; in Strange Weather in Tokyo, the surreal logic of the story reflects the tender irrationality of love. If these two works belong to the realm of dreams, then Dragon Palace is their counterpart in nightmare. Darkness and sadness have always lurked at the corner of Kawakami’s work, but here they texture each story to a visible degree. Despite being full of elements of fantasy and otherworldliness, the stories cannot escape the issues that plague everyday humanity: loneliness, death, unrequited love. Above all else, violence against women features time and time again. (“Rereading the story twenty years later, I can see how upset I was at the clearly exploitative nature of relationships between men and women,” Kawakami says of “The Kitchen God.”) The women in these stories largely feature as sexual objects, from the bisexual great-grandmother of the title story to the passed-around wife of “Seahorse,” because the world around them sexualizes them. Unlike the women of Murakami’s fiction, though, the women here resist. They flee, they walk away, they peel stucco from the walls and thoughtfully eat it.

In a recent interview with The Guardian, Mieko Kawakami—the other, more famous Kawakami due to her popularity on certain sections of BookTok—observes that Japanese literature has connotations of being “odd, cute and a bit mysterious … and its concerns minor.” Odd, cute, and a bit mysterious are all certainly descriptors that could be applied to Dragon Palace, as well as Hiromi Kawakami’s other works, but their concerns are far from minor. Dragon Palace is a welcome addition to the canon of translated Japanese literature, and I look forward to what else the efforts of Ted Goossen and the Monkey Imprint will bring us in the future.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is a wonderfully bizarre collection of 8 short stories, with elements of fantasy, magical realism, and surrealism.

The stories explore themes of transformation, love, loss, sex, and the human condition. I especially enjoyed the use of animals in these stories, and how well it was blended with folklore.

While The Kitchen God and Sea Horse (fourth and eighth stories) were my favorite, something can be taken from each one, and I think they're all worth reading in their own way.

Overall a magical and thought-provoking reading experience that lingers in the mind long after the final page is turned.

This is a small book (pamphlet?) containing 8 short stories, all of which contain some element of blurring between the human and animal/ aquatic worlds. Many of the characters also seem sex-mad/sex-driven in some way. As I didn’t really buy either of these points, this collection wasn’t for me - I finished in order to write the review rather than because I enjoyed them.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Dragon Palace by Hiromi Kawakami (ARC review)



As someone who loves Japanese literature, I was really intrigued by the title and the cover of this book.

I have also heard some great things about Strange Weather in Tokyo by the same author.

However, in all honesty, this book just wasn’t for me. The best way to describe it would be 'fever dream.'



These 8 short stories were bizarre, weird, and made no sense to me, or maybe I wasn’t the right person to appreciate them. The stories had high fantasy and magical realism, and the characters were simply creepy.



However, I do appreciate the author and will be reading more of her work in the future. I am also grateful to NetGalley for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.



Book releases in September 2023!

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Collection of stories where each one of them is weird on its own way. The way the author portray how the human instinct with their own desire showing the uniqueness of each of us.

The book is a collection of 8 short stories, each one expanding upon different aspects of the human existence. The stories are varied, by all seem to convey a deep sense of dejection and loneliness, but also, at times, hope. Most of the stories have some component of magical realism and spirituality, driving the narrative and underpinning events. In many ways, this is a very Japanese set of stories, with a lot of them being deeply embedded in Japanese folklore and day-to-day experience.

I liked the punchiness and variety of the stories, as well as their ability to convey, without seeminly doing it consciously, a deep sense of separation from the universe and everything around us. The best story, perhaps, is "Fox's Den", talking about ageing, love, and death. "Mole" is pretty special too, being on the outer end of magical realism in this collection.

I did find the stories often hard to grasp. While it could definitely be my own shortcomings and my inability to fully comprehend what the author was trying to convey, it could also be that the stories are way too convoluted and complex. Either way, I didn't feel I followed many of them, and that ruined the experience. I don't know what would have helped, but the stories do feel less "universal" in their appeal, and, potentially, get literally lost in translation (especially "Hokusai", "The Kitchen God", and "The Roar".

I think that people who have strong affinity to Japanese culture will enjoy it. It's not an otherwise easily accessible book.

My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an early copy of this book in return for an honest review.

My first hiromi kawakami book, and i'm not sure if i recommend starting her oeuvre with this one. I have to be honest and say that i really didn't get some of the more bizarre stories in this collection. I feel like that's more on me than on the author though, and i did very much enjoy kawakami's writing style, so i do want to check out more of her work after this. Maybe it's better to read this book if you're already familiar with kawakami's work, because towards the end of the book i found myself becoming more and more used to, and in turn interested in, these absurd, mythical tales. There were two stories in this collection that i did really like, and those were mole and sea horse - both essentially stories about anthropmorphic animals living amongst and observing humans.

Thanks to Netgalley and Stone Bridge Press for the eArc in exchange for an honest review! Dragon palace is out on 19 september.

These Kawakami's stories, reminded me massively of Sayaka Murata's and also of her Earthlings. The extensive use of Japanese legends, anthropomorphized animals and the stories often full of disgusting details, but above all this way of writing in the first person that however never gets involved, as if the things that happen to the main protagonist who is also the narrator, happen to someone else. This then is a style that seems to me to be rather transversal in current Japanese authors but I don't particularly like it, because I feel like I'm looking at the whole thing through a dirty window.

Questi racconti della Kawakami, mi hanno ricordato in modo evidente quelli di Sayaka Murata ed anche il suo Terrestri. L'uso massiccio di leggende giapponesi, animali antropomorfizzati e le storie spesso piene di dettagli disgustosi, ma soprattutto questo modo di raccontare in prima persona che peró non si lascia mai coinvolgere, come se le cose che accadono al protagonista principale, che é anche il narratore, succedessero a qualcun altro. Questo poi é uno stile che mi sembra piuttosto trasversale negli autori giapponesi attuali, ma a me non piace particolarmente, perché mi sembra di guardare il tutto da una finestra sporca.

I received from the Publisher a complimentary digital advanced review copy of the book in exchange for a honest review.

I am a big fan of Hiromo Kawakami's work and was looking forward to trying out her short stories. As someone who is not generally a fan of short stories tho, I was a bit hesitant, but I really love Japanese literature and have read quite a few Japanese folk tales so I was hoping that a Japanese author would be good for my first foray into the short story world in a long while.

And I have to say I was not disappointed. There were obviously multiple stories, so not every single story was created equal, there were a few that I liked significantly more than others. There was one that was about houses that have kitchen gods...not all kitchens have them tho, only some, and it's an entity that exists in a person's kitchen because of the positivity they have in their life and the positivity they bring to the world. THAT was my favorite story. Overall there were more stories that I really enjoyed than duds, tho there were a dud or two. All the stories were super interesting and unique and self contained, but they were all thematically linked, each of them having something to do with transformations and all the various ways things and people can transform. Personally I love Japanese fiction and the oddities and quirks that come with it, but if that is not your style ou probably won't enjoy this, but for me it was a solid 4 star read.

Never has a book of short stories included so many weird little guys! With this latest collection of whimsical, strange, often amusing tales, Kawakami uses animal metaphors to explore the deepest reaches of the human experience. Octopus man? Sure! Mole folks? Absolutely. Weasel infestation? Why not?

The stories here, often feeling like twisted folklore, usually contain a sparkling pearl of an idea, a brilliant, odd little concept. In a few stories, the idea takes shape and carries the whole narrative, and the reader, merrily along. In others however, whimsy overtakes purpose somewhat. As with most short story collections, "Dragon Palace" is occasionally hit-or-miss. Fans of Kawakami (frankly either Hiromi or Meiko) will find a lot to love here, even if new readers are sometimes left a bit baffled

A solid 4.5 stars from me. Huge thanks to Netgalley and Stone Bridge Press for the e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

Dragon's Palace is a bizzare, magnanimously eccentric collection of 8 short stories that both enlighten and confused me. Its fantastical elements and cultural disposition sprinkled throughout its stories are actually clever because they were imbued with social commentary disguised as fictional narrative. I can see why people may be turned off by this book because of how confusing and seemingly nonsensical each of these stories can be. But once you delve deeper and concentrate on what message can you take away from each of them, you will realize how deceptively genius Kawakami is for crafting such bizzare, absurdist tale out of folklore &Japanese fairytales into stories that pervades modern society. To be fair, I will rate each of the stories by its own and i will be honest, i like most of them but only 2 felt a bit too overboard and make me uncomfortable with their wild nature.

1. Hokusai - 4 ✨️
2. Dragon's Palace - 3✨️
3. Fox's Den - 4✨️
4. Kitchen God - 4.5✨️
5. Shimazaki - 4✨️
6. The Roar -3✨️
7. Mole -5✨️
8. Sea Horse -5✨️
The last stories left a huge impact on me. For the first time after reading through all of the stories, arriving here, i have understand the nature of Kawakami's character and expected the true form of her character. Izumi was once a non-human being from the sea and turn into human, having being attracted to a male on the land. There is a theme of oppression and misogynistic treatment to her as she was passed from one husband to another like a possession meant to be objectified and enslaved. Such a cruel tale yet it rings truth in the society. I hate how the husbands treated her and its one of the character development I'm rooting for the most. She talked about her children, her youngest daughter beared similarities to her the most while the three sons are more human like. Its about taking freedom from someone and reclaim it back.

Thank you to @stonebridgepress and @monkeybizjapan for this #arc of #dragonpalace by #hiromikawakami translated by #tedgoossen

I love translated Japanese short story collections! #salmonellamenonplanetporno, #thingsrememberedandthingsforgotten, #lifeceremony and #terminalboredom are some of my favourites. Dragon Palace is up there with them all. This is a brilliant collection of totally bizarre, memorable and interesting stories. I have to say I found it nothing like #kawakami has done before, #strangeweatherintokyo or #thetenlovesofnishino are quite meditative reads but this was entirely different. If you like wacky stories that will haunt you, in a good way, this is great book for you.

Out 2nd November 2023 in the UK.

#honnomushi100 #reading #japanesefiction #translatedfiction #translatedjapaneseliterature #booksfromjapan #booklover #bookstagram #translatedgems #japaneseauthor #japanesefiction #japaneseauthors #japaneseliterature #japanesetranslatedfiction

The eight pieces collected here were first published in 2002, and reflect Hiromi Kawakami’s earlier preoccupation with fantastical and metaphorical forms of storytelling. Kawakami’s stories draw on a diverse range of sources from Shintō and Buddhist traditions to Japanese folklore and fairytales. The richly evocative “Hokusai” builds on the artist’s now-infamous “Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife” referencing its imagery to form an oblique commentary on destructive masculinity and a misogyny that serves as distraction from harsh economic realities and increasing social fragmentation. Themes that resurface in “The Roar” and later in “Sea Horse” a melancholy twist on a folk tale, in which the experiences of an unearthly woman from the sea raises the spectre of patriarchy and generations of domestic violence, although it also holds out hope of ending the cycle. The absurdist “Dragon Palace” and slightly surreal “The Kitchen God” also deal with issues of gender and oppression, as well as the disconnect between the modern world and traditional beliefs. Although “The Kitchen God” is probably the more memorable of the two: Kawakami’s skilful use of animal symbolism working to expose an outwardly-conventional housewife’s ongoing trauma, as Izumi strives to rebel against social expectations, stifling domesticity and predatory men. Loss of connection with the past, with history, and crucially with nature are key aspects of stories like “Shimazaki” and “Fox’s Den” an earthy, unsettling variation on legends of the fox-like, kitsune spirits. Questions of mortality, transience and alienation pervade many of these pieces but are strikingly highlighted in fable-like “Mole.” Here Kawakami seems to be interrogating broader cultural notions of the centrality of ties between people (kizuna) as well as between human and animal. The story’s narrated by a mole who somehow moves between human and animal spheres, working in a city office by day, retreating to his underground den by night. The blatant discrimination the mole faces from his human co-workers exposes the deep cracks and fissures crisscrossing urban society. His supernatural abilities enable him to identify despairing humans, adding them to a menagerie of sorts in which they’ll either die or return to the outside restored. Kawakami’s short fiction here is sometimes wickedly perverse and sometimes puzzlingly elliptical but always richly imaginative. Translated by Ted Goossen.

Before I even got to the first page the book began to irritate me. Where was the contents page? Where was the list of stories, the titles and the amount of pages each story has? The majority of anthologies and even novels have a contents page, it’s ergonomic, easy to use and helpful to the reader – especially regarding short stories. So why did this publisher think they should do it differently?

Furthermore, I would have liked an author biography and a foreword with each story, to learn more about the author and the stories.

Getting into the heart of the book, I found the short stories uninteresting. The majority were from the first person and instead of being immersed I found each one duller, as they seemed to come from the same voice and same perspective.

However, I welcome translations from publishers, we have reviewed some great science fiction translations from other publishers and even though we were not a fan of this book, we are very much fans of different cultures in science fiction. We encourage the author and publisher to continue writing and publishing this kind of work, as we all know short stories can resonate with different people.

Eight surreal short stories that tackle the question of who we are when we are in the presence of other people. Excited to have another work of one of Japan's preeminent writers translated to English. My favorite in this collection is Mole--a touching and sad perspective on the human condition.

Delightful and quirky short stories, featuring animals changing into people, people who live to be several hundred years old, tiny gods with three faces... I liked all of them although some were harder to follow and the translation was a bit clunky at times - I especially loved "The Kitchen God" and "Mole":

Such an odd collection of stories; none of them made any sense. One or two are quite amusing, like The Kitchen God, and I have to give the author credit for their imagination and creativity.

A collection of eight strange, fantastical stories each unique and weird. My favourite was ‘The Kitchen God’ which follows an unnamed woman who eats stucco, prays three times a day to her kitchen god, and is having an affair with a man who ends up obsessed with her. I found I resonated with this story most.

Whist the collection is very short at only 88 pages Hiromi Kawakami has packed a punch with beautifully written tales that sweep you away into mystical and feverish worlds. I would highly recommend Dragon Paradise!