Book excerpt: Parallel Language and Compiler Research in Japan offers the international community an opportunity to learn in-depth about key Japanese research efforts in the particular software domains of parallel programming and parallelizing compilers. These are important topics that strongly bear on the effectiveness and affordability of high performance computing systems. The chapters of this book convey a comprehensive and current depiction of leading edge research efforts in Japan that focus on parallel software design, development, and optimization that could be obtained only through direct and personal interaction with the researchers themselves.