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Violent, sensual, and seemingly un-Japanese, the stories in Season of Violence nevertheless depict Japanese teenagers of the present in compulsive but often unconscious revolt against the moral codes of "old Japan." Yet these stories tell of youth who offer no real, modern morality to replace the old—only the anti-morality of indiscriminate sex, brutality, and living for today's pleasures and sensations. These are stories of teenagers who came to be known as Taiyozoku—the Sun Tribe.

In the course of her brilliant career Sylvia Townsend Warner wrote superbly in many and diverse forms but never penned a memoir, properly speaking. However, from the 1930s to the 1970s she did contribute a series of short reminiscences to the New Yorker. Scenes of Childhood collects and orders those reminiscences, thus forming a volume that reads as a joyous, wry and moving testament to the experience of being alive.

Here is a new collection of twelve absorbing, deeply compassionate tales that reveal the subtle revenges of love and indifference, the deep wells of affection, and the strange, breathtaking tricks of chance that make up the texture of our lives.

This masterful translation of a recent Bolivian novel, En el pais del silencio, transports us to a mysterious, silent, and unfamiliar land where astonishing truths are placed within our grasp.

"Forget all your fears now. Have a fling this night." Untrustworthy, charming Fussy Joe spins stories and breaks hearts in this rollicking tale set in the "sensational city" of 1960s Lagos. Penguin Modern celebrates fifty new books that embody the pioneering spirit of Penguin Modern Classics, each offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavor.

Shiva Naipaul was the brother of V. S. Naipaul and author of *Fireflies* and *The Chip-Chip Gatherers*. *Fireflies*, his first novel, published in 1970 and longlisted for the 'Lost Man Booker Award' in 2010, is set in Naipaul's native Trinidad. It includes a new foreword by Amit Chaudhuri. The Khojas are Trinidad's most venerated Hindu family. Rigidly orthodox, presiding over acres of ill-kept sugarcane and hoards of jewellery enthusiastically guarded by old Mrs. Khoja, they seem to have triumphed more by default than by anything else.

Facing the Music, Larry Brown's first book, was originally published in 1988 to wide critical acclaim. As the St. Petersburg Times review pointed out, the central theme of these ten stories "is the ageless collision of man with woman, woman with man-with the frequent introduction of that other familiar couple, drinking and violence. Most often ugly, love is nevertheless graceful, however desperate the situation." There's some glare from the brutally bright light Larry Brown shines on his subjects.

Recognized throughout the world for his brilliance as a novelist and playwright, Yukio Mishima is also noted as a master of the short story in his native Japan, where the form is practiced as a major art. Nine of Yukio Mishima's finest stories were selected by Mishima himself for translation in this book; they represent his extraordinary ability to depict a wide variety of human beings in moments of significance. Often his characters are sophisticated modern Japanese who turn out to be not so liberated from the past as they had thought.

In the autumnal darkness of October 6, 1894, an unseen figure slipped through the streets of Parkdale, rang the doorbell at the home of a well-to-do Toronto family, and shot Frank Westwood in his doorway, murdering him in cold blood. Six weeks later, the spotlight shone on the enigmatic Clara Ford, a Black tailor and single mother known for her impeccable work ethic and resolute personality—and for wearing men’s attire. A former neighbour of the Westwoods, Clara was arrested and confessed to the murder.

"Larry Brown writes like a force of nature." -Pat Conroy. Larry Brown caught the rapt attention of readers and critics with the 1988 publication of Facing the Music, his prize-winning first collection of stories. The following year, his first novel, Dirty Work, won national acclaim as a work of uncompromising power and honesty. Big Bad Love, his third book, collects ten new stories. Dealing with sex, with drink, with fear, with all kinds of bad luck and obsession, these stories are unflinching and not for the fainthearted.