Hits and Misses

The World Cup is here again! And as in footie, my literary world for the past few months has also contained hits and misses:

The Hits...

1) Snow country by Yasunari Kawabata
2) The sound of the mountain by Yasunari Kawabata
3) The Izu dancer by Yasunari Kawabata
4) Never let me go by Kazuo Ishiguro
5) A personal matter by Kenzaburo Oe
6) The old man and the sea by Ernest Hemingway
7) Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
8) Dreaming of Kimchee by Banana Yoshimoto (from The Oxford Book of Japanese Short Stories & Lizard)
9) Buying a fishing rod for my grandfather by Gao Xingjian

The Miss...

Hardboiled; & hard luck by Banana Yoshimoto (as The Strait Times book review put it: this one is just too simplistic...)

I think the list reveals my preference for Japanese authors and that I am a late bloomer (Kafka, The old man and the sea?). Say, anybody has any recommendation for Chinese authors? Too bad Gao Xingjian's Soul Mountain and One man's bible both embody pillows (*yawn*).