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