"The essays are elegantly argued and gracefully written, the translations and their headnotes are superbly executed, and the selections have been skillfully shaped and arranged by the volume's editors. . . . [It is] an excellent tribute to their teacher and a significant addition to Japanese literary and cultural studies."
--Maryellen Toman Mori in The Journal of Asian Studies

"What one gets from reading the collection is a sense of serendipitous richness: There are essays on a number of different writers, done with a number of different approaches and in varied writing styles. The wealth of intelligence and finely honed literary sense is overwhelming. These essays and translations, all of them interesting and all of them exceptionally well done, will furnish the general reader and the specialist alike with valuable critical perspectives on modern Japanese literature for some time to come."
--Janet Walker in Japan Quarterly

In Studies in Modern Japanese Literature, twenty-two students honor their mentor, Edwin McClellan, with essays and translations focusing on literature from the late nineteenth through the late twentieth centuries. The authors discussed range from Natsume Sôseki to Murakami Haruki, and the subjects that are dealt with include the flourishing of literary forms in response to the Ansei earthquake, the impact of Western styles on Japanese literature, and modern poetry. Together with the translations of short stories, fables, and a critical essay, these contributions provide an overview of modern Japanese literary history.

Contributors include: Paul Anderer, Carole Cavanaugh, Robert Lyons Danly, Eto Jun, Susanna Fessler, Elaine Gerbert, Ken K. Ito, Kyoko Kurita, Phyllis I. Lyons, Andrew Markus, Minae Mizumura, James R. Morita, Christopher Michael Rich, Jay Rubin, William F. Sibley, Stephen Snyder, Tomi Suzuki, Alan Tansman, Richard Torrance, John Whittier Treat, Dennis Washburn, and Angela Yiu.