<b>Short stories by Japan’s cutting-edge writers, in vertical text and with vocabulary, notes, and FREE AUDIO DOWNLOAD to make reading Japanese easier than ever.</b><br><br>Long-awaited by teachers and students, <i>Read Real Japanese Fiction </i>presents short works by six of today’s most daring and provocative Japanese writers. The spellbinding world of Hiromi Kawakami; the hair-raising horror of Otsuichi; the haunting, poignant prose of Banana Yoshimoto; even the poetic word-play of Yoko Tawada—whatever their tastes, readers are sure to find something of interest and value in this book, suitable for students at the intermediate level and above.<br><br>As in real Japanese novels, the text on each page runs from top to bottom and from right to left. Each double-page spread features translations of all the difficult passages. In the back of the book, moreover, is a built-in Japanese-English learner’s dictionary and a notes section covering issues of nuance, usage, grammar and culture that come up in each story. Best of all, the book comes with a free audio download containing narrations of the stories, performed by a professional voice actress.