Phantom Lights and Other Stories by Miyamoto Teru

This book is an example of superb storytelling, full of surprises and quiet revelations of human emotions. Some stories, phantom lights, for example, are elegiac and of profound human sensitivity, and others are beautiful, heartbreaking and unforgettable lamentations of human soul. The stories are amazing, I was utterly amazed and touched and left me wondering in awe, how such quiet, simple writing can be so powerfully evocative. He is a master, indeed.

Mostly every story is good and worth the read.

Beautiful short stories. Everyone's feelings, simple, deep in our hearts, colorful. Already bought Kinshu to delight myself very soon. I also like his film Moboroshi, Nobody Knows ... i love Miyamoto Teru's sensitivity and the ways he tells it.

I hadn't heard of Teru Miyamoto before reading this collection, but he is a well-known (and popular) writer back in Japan, one who won the Akutagawa Prize. 'Phantom Lights' is a nice introduction to his work, consisting of eight stories written mostly in the 1980s, many of which are fairly autobiographical.The title story is probably my favourite, mainly because it takes a step away from the author-centred focus of some of the other stories, casting a woman as the central character and spreading the action over a longer story (which leads me to think that Miyamoto's longer work might be worth checking out). The translation is generally good, although it's a shame the translator didn't try to tackle the (admittedly tricky) job of bringing across the flavour of the stories' Kansai (western Japan) setting.An added bonus in this collection is a great introduction by the translator, giving background information about the writer and a brief commentary on some of the stories - something I'd like to see in more works of translated fiction :)For a more in-depth review, please check out my post at Tony's Reading List.

Excellent.