definitely. Kazuo Ishiguro, author of Never Let Me Go and Artist of the Floating World; Banana Yoshimoto who wrote Kitchen and Goodbye Tugumi; Motojirou Kajii, writer of amazing pieces such as Lemon; Yasunari Kawabata, author of Snow Country, The Scarlet Gang of Asakusa and Beauty and Sadness (he also won the nobel prize for literature in 1968); Koda Aya, who wrote The Last Hours; Yukio Mishima, writer of Confessions of a Mask and The Temple of the Golden Pavilion; i recently bought a book of japanese short stories which contains one from Abe Katsushige (The Maiden in the Manger), one by Ishii Shinji (Where the Bowling Pin Stands) and another by Yoshida Sueko (Love Suicide at Kamaara), among others, which i thought were really good.