The stories are from human experiences and empathy
American-Canadian author, filmmaker, and Zen Buddhist priest, Ruth Ozeki is a genius with the same mind and narration. Her stories are not just about finding peace or the ultimate lesson but about knowing that what exists is here to exit and how humans can work their way around it. Most of Ruth Ozeki’s work seeks to integrate not only a personal narrative as well as social issues. Her narrations deal with themes relating to science, technology, environmental politics, race, religion, war, and global popular culture. Here is a list of Ruth Ozeki’s novels that one must read.
The Book of Form and Emptiness
This is Ozeki's fourth novel and won the 2022 Women's Prize for Fiction. The story of the book follows a boy who hears voices from inanimate objects, while the narrative of the book explores themes of mental illness and bereavement. The book is said to have been partially inspired by Zen Buddhism and this question – ‘do insentient beings speak the dharma?’ forms the central theme of the narrative. The story begins with Benny Oh trying to be stable after the death of his father. Oh, who is a Canadian boy of Japanese-Korean descent, soon after his father’s death begins to hear voices calling out from inanimate objects.
My Year of Meats
This 1998 novel stems from the advantage of the differences between Japanese and American cultures. The plot begins with Jane Takagi-Little, a Japanese-American documentary filmmaker. She is hired to work for a Japanese production company but ends up uncovering some unsavoury truths about love, fertility, and a dangerous hormone called DES. Parallelly runs another story of Akiko Ueno, a former manga artist specializing in horror scenes. The interesting part about the narration of the novel is that it switches the point of view of Jane Takagi-Little and Akiko Ueno.
All Over Creation
This novel is about Yumi Fuller, the Japanese-American daughter of a potato farmer in Idaho who returns home as an adult to care for her parents, Lloyd and Momoko. And on her return back home nearer two decades later she gets engrossed in the growing controversy around genetically modified foods. The book goes on to show how the farming community has been invaded by Agribusiness forces with an activist group, the Seeds of Resistance.
A Tale for the Time Being
This novel is a metafictional story that is narrated by two characters - a 16-year-old Japanese American girl living in Tokyo who keeps a diary, and a Japanese American writer living on an island off the coast of British Columbia who finds the diary of the young woman washed ashore after the 2011 tsunami.
