Snakes and Earrings, by Hitomi Kanehara, trans. David James KarashimaInnocent World, by Ami Sakurai, trans Steven ClarkVibrator, by Mari Akasaka trans Michael Emmerich

They call them the "lost generation". Japan's troubled youths provoke more headlines and hand-wringing from pundits than a streetload of Asbo yobs. Now three publishers have released Japanese novellas that claim to tell it how it is, from young female authors with "shocking" tales of urban despair. But you won't find gunfights, addiction or so much as a burning wheelie bin in these breathless accounts. Urban disaffection, Tokyo-style, is nothing if not erotic. Sex and shopping are the main outlets of rebellion, the former usually transacted to fund the latter.

The 17-year-old heroine of Hitomi Kanehara's Snakes and Earrings is called Lui - "for Louis Vuitton", she explains. She works as an escort, clad in a kimono and wig to cover her Barbie-blonde hair. Sometimes she's unlucky, and her client is a sadist who pokes her with needles or violates her with a bottle. She has sex on the side with a tattoo artist, in exchange for a design he's working on her back.

Lui longs to split her tongue so it is forked like a snake's, as her boyfriend's is. The story's progress is marked by the increasing girth of stud the girl uses to stretch her pierced tongue. When it reaches 9.5mm, the remaining strip of flesh will be tied with dental floss then sliced with a razor blade.

But Lui's tale is normality itself compared with Ami Sakurai's Innocent World. The heroine, Ami, is also 17, and also involved in the cosupurei (costume play) escort business. Outside office hours, she sleeps with her mentally disabled older brother. Becoming pregnant, Ami sets out to discover herself. She tracks down her sperm-donor father, then addresses her identity issues by bedding him, too.

Similar in shock value, these two books are poles apart in quality. Kanehara, now 20, is the real thing. Her prose is lean, and her characterisation convincing. Last year, Snakes and Earrings scooped the Akutagawa prize, Japan's Booker. It also drew praise from Ryu Murakami, the bad-boy author of Almost Transparent Blue (1976), a success de scandale that first whetted Japan's appetite for tales of youthful alienation.

By contrast, Innocent World is enough to put you off your sushi. Sakurai is a thirtysomething journalist, popular for her racy reportage. Her novel, though, is overwritten and sickly-sweet. The heroine climaxes in rapturous synch with her partner (when he happens to be a blood relative), and starlit nights are generally to hand. It's as though she believes teenagers capable of expressing themselves only in cliché. Kanehara proves her wrong.

Rounding out the trio is Vibrator by Mari Akasaka, in which journalist Rei is an alcoholic bulimic, who gets picked up by a trucker in her local convenience store when on a midnight foray for booze. In no time at all, they're at it in the compartment behind the lorry cab. Intrigued by the driver's gangster past, Rei decides to keep on truckin', and the two cross Japan. Rei suffers from voices inside her head - the result of abuse by a teacher (another favourite theme of the Japanese media). But as the road rolls under them, and Rei listens to the voices drifting over the CB airwaves, she makes a temporary truce with her demons.

Vibrator - the title refers to the vibrations of the chassis, and perhaps the resonance Rei feels with the trucker and his fellows - has been turned into a top-notch film. The book is every bit as good. Having a journalist heroine allows Akasaka to indulge her love of wordplay. Of the three novellas, Vibrator is the most challenging to translate, and has been rendered most skilfully.

The magazine Shukan Bunshun reports that more and more Japanese women are writing sexually explicit novels. Yet mainstream success remains elusive for serious women novelists. Only a handful have achieved prominence in the past two decades. It is to be hoped that Kanehara and Akasaka remain in the public eye, even if the subjects of their next books prove less sensational.

Victoria James was arts editor of the 'Japan Times'

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