SNAKES AND EARRINGS
by Hitomi Kanehara
Vintage £5.99, 128 pages

VIBRATOR
by Mari Akasaka
Faber and Faber £7.99, 144 pages

Ever since Pierre Loti wrote Madame Chrysantheme in 1887 the western view of Japanese women in literature has been somewhat warped. The stereotype of gentle, doll-like creatures with white makeup and cherry blossom lips, existing solely for the gratification of men, has been perpetuated from Cho Cho san in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly to Sayuri in Arthur Golden’s Memoirs of a Geisha.

This orientalist escapism is often mistaken for truth. Many readers believed Memoirs of a Geisha was the authentic story of a geisha rather than the product of a white American male’s imagination. While the success of Memoirs proved that “Geisha books” sell, an increasing number of books by female Japanese authors are being translated and we are finally able to hear the voice of modern Japanese women. It’s one that screams, “I’m no geisha!”

Snakes and Earrings by Hitomi Kanehara was the joint winner of the 2004 Akutagawa Prize, Japan’s biggest literary award. Kanehara, aged 20, and 19-year-old Risa Wataya - whose work has yet to be translated into English - were the youngest-ever winners of the award. While cynics suggested that giving the award to such young - and attractive - women was a desperate bid to boost sales for Japan’s flagging publishing industry (sales of Snakes have exceeded one million copies, so it may have worked), these women have captured the voice of the first generation to come of age in “post-bubble” Japan. Ryu Murakami, one of Japan’s most respected authors and a judge of the award, said Snakes and Earrings “clearly passes on what goes on in the minds of young women today”. He called it “a radical depiction of our time”, exposing how the turmoil of the last decade has affected the youth of Japan, leaving them dispirited, confused and questioning their future.

Snakes and Earrings is set on the streets of modern Tokyo, where a 19-year-old girl is trying to find some meaning in her life. Fascinated by the snake-like tongue of her punk boyfriend Ama, “Barbie doll” Lui decides she wants one too and has her tongue pierced.

As the hole in her tongue stretches, so does the distance between herself and the “pleasant, polite Japanese girl” she pretends to be when working as a kimono-clad gentleman’s companion.

”I had absolutely no interest in elite guys in suits, and I was sure they would feel the same about a girl with a tongue-stud... once my tongue was properly split, I’d never be doing this kind of work again.”

Lui’s transformation from Barbie doll to punk is violent, sexually and physically. As she sheds the skin of tradition, she gets a large tattoo on her back and begins a relationship with the sadistic tattoo artist, Shiba-san. She is still living with Ama, and her bizarre love triangle takes a dangerous turn when Ama goes missing after killing a man. As events unfold, Lui wishes she “had a greater vocabulary to fully express the extent of [my] pain and hatred”. Instead, her rage is contained and Kanehara tells the dark tale of Tokyo youth with a simple, visceral eloquence.

The unconventional life of the novel’s author is similar to that of its protagonist. Kanehara, like Lui, has several oversized piercings in her ears, had no secondary or tertiary schooling and moved in with her boyfriend at 16. In Japan, Snakes and Earrings has shocked older readers, while many younger people endorse Kanehara as a writer who shares their teen angst. The young are increasingly rejecting the lives of their parents and their “blind acceptance” of national doctrine. The alternative to corporate slavery is to be a “freeter” - a part-time or freelance worker, like Lui.

Mari Akasaka’s Vibrator, newly translated into English, offers another window on the lives of Japanese women. Despite its lurid marketing - the hot pink cover and lime green text - its theme is not erotic, but psychological. It is a novel about self-discovery.

Late one night, Rei Hayakawa, a 31-year-old freelance journalist, is wandering the aisle of an all-night convenience store, contemplating both her life and which wine to buy. Her stream of consciousness is initially disorientating and troubling, for Rei and the reader: “Spiralling through my head, my own thoughts harass me.” Vibrating beneath these thoughts, and resonating throughout the novel, is the suppressed memory of a schoolgirl trauma. Akasaka handles this interior narrative with deft style, gradually unveiling Rei’s life.

Rei drinks to silence the voices in her head. She is bulimic because it helps her sleep. She is stressed about work and feels the pressure of being single in a society that expects women to marry by the age of 25. “If you live in a world that’s controlled overwhelmingly by men, and if you don’t want people making remarks about things that are really none of their business, you’ve either got to be totally indifferent to how you look or else go around looking beautiful all the time,” she says. “I attempted to look beautiful all the time. But there are limits to how much you can do.”

When a man, Okabe, walks past her in the Family Mart, brushing her hand, her longing for intimacy leads her outside to his waiting truck. This irrational move starts the road trip that leads her away from madness. Soon they are having sex in the sleeping compartment. What passed for intimacy in Snakes had little to do with romance; in Vibrator it is passionate and sensual.

The difference between the novels is largely generational: Lui is 19 and Rei 31. What ties the protagonists together is the sense of ennui that propels each of them into action. Lui rejects her Barbie-doll image to become a punk, while Rei rediscovers herself through a passionate sexual encounter with a stranger.

The geisha has all but vanished. It is the high-school girl that has become the icon of contemporary Japan. In Vibrator, Rei reflects on how modern girls are stronger than she had been at school. At 31, she is trapped between the traditional expectation to be a good wife and wise mother, and the world of girls like Lui who are pushing the boundaries of sexuality and liberation. However, both are independent and firm in their rejection of social mores - and give foreign readers a more honest view of today’s Japanese woman than a “Geisha book” ever will.