Experimental novelist Todd Shimoda: seeking mono no aware in and with literary art

Colin Marshall talks to novelist Todd Shimoda, author of 365 Views of Mt. Fuji, The Fourth Treasure and now Oh!: A Mystery of Mono No Aware. Shimoda calls his stories “somewhat experimental, post-modernish, dealing with Asian or Asian-American themes to some degree, but also broad questions of existence,” or “philosophical mysteries.” His latest novel documents an embodies a search for the elusive Japanese literary concept of mono no aware.

Persons/places/works/sites referenced in this interview, in the order mentioned

Todd and L.J.C. Shimoda's web site, Shimodaworks

Todd Shimoda's novels: 365 Views of Mt. Fuji: Algorithms of the Floating World, The Fourth Treasure and Oh!: A mystery of 'mono no aware'

The literary concept of mono no aware

Novelist Yukio Mishima (1925-1970)

Novelist Kobo Abe (1924-1993)

Novelist Albert Camus (1913-1960)

Albert Camus' The Stranger (Everyman's Library)

The Japanese concept of ikigai, or the worth of living

Chin Music Press

Kobo Abe's The Ruined Map: A Novel

An excerpt of Todd Shimoda's Ruined Map sequel-in-progess, Why Ghosts Appear