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November 05, 2024
 

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Roger Pulvers

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Roger Pulvers
Roger Pulvers is an author, playwright, theater director and translator who divides his time between Tokyo and Sydney. He has published more than 40 books. His latest book in English is "The Dream of Lafcadio Hearn."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Apr 16, 2023
In Mikhail Shishkin’s Russia, 'hate is a disease, culture is the treatment'
The Russian author's book provides a sweep through the nooks and crannies of Russian history, while delivering a forceful defense of literature as the weapon to overcome past wrongs.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 7, 2023
My friendship with Ryuichi Sakamoto
Roger Pulvers writes about his relationship with the late musician, recalling the time he introduced Sakamoto to David Bowie.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History
Mar 7, 2021
The founding father of Japanese seismology
Aikitsu Tanakadate was a leading light in Japan's early research into earthquakes, and urged the government to get involved in damage control measures.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Apr 4, 2020
‘What is Japanese Cinema?’ review: A deft and engaging history of Japanese film
This book is healthily nonjudgmental concerning which films are “good” and which are not. Instead it steps back — far back — to gaze carefully at and analyze the bigger picture: the role that cinema has played in reflecting and altering Japanese consciousness and Japanese reality over the span of a century.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Apr 7, 2018
'Patient X' by David Peace: An intensely profound portrait of a writer's life and death
There is an astounding authenticity permeating Peace's writing on Japan, as if he is painstakingly recreating the biography of an entire nation and age.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Mar 10, 2018
Seeking solace in Tohoku's poets of old
On Oct. 11, 2011, seven months to the day after the catastrophic earthquake and tsunami struck the Tohoku region, I stood beside the sole surviving pine tree from a 350-year-old forest of approximately 70,000 similar trees on the coastline of Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture. In the months following the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Aug 26, 2017
'Ghosts of the Tsunami': Richard Lloyd Parry's recounts 2011 tsunami and what came after
Fifty-one minutes after the earthquake struck on March 11, 2011, a massive wall of water inundated the grounds of the Ishinomaki Municipal Okawa Elementary School in Miyagi Prefecture, killing 74 pupils, 10 staff and the school bus driver.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 25, 2017
Polish film director Andrzej Wajda represented the voice and conscience of a nation
"I stood here just after the end of the war," Polish film director Andrzej Wajda said. "I was only 19 years old. The entire area was flattened, just rubble. The Stare Miasto (Old Town) was one big gaping pit that I stared into."
CULTURE / Music / David Bowie in Japan
Jan 15, 2016
Ground control to Major Jack
I first met David Bowie in August 1982 in Auckland, New Zealand, where the crew of Nagisa Oshima's "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence" had come together for the flight to the film's location in Rarotonga, Cook Islands. From the outset he came across as a man of great personal warmth, devoid of any pretence....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 9, 2016
Nagisa Oshima: 'You have to tell the truth about your country, whatever it is'
Jan. 15 marks the third anniversary of the renowned film director's death. Roger Pulvers, who knew him for more than 30 years and was his assistant on “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence,” discusses the man and his work
Japan Times
JAPAN / History
Jul 11, 2015
Chiune Sugihara: man of conscience
Chiune Sugihara, Japanese consul in Kaunas, Lithuania, awoke on the morning of July 18, 1940, to a disturbing sight. He peered through the curtains of his bedroom window just before 6 a.m. Sugihara and his wife had been living in the consulate building since their arrival at the end of August 1939, just...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jun 6, 2015
Inspiring story of 'the only woman in the room'
"My father came to Tokyo from Karuizawa to meet me," wrote Beate Sirota Gordon in a message to me, which she sent several years before her death in 2012 at age 89. "He looked gaunt and undernourished. ... My mother did not come because undernourishment had caused her to swell up, and she was ill in bed....
Japan Times
LIFE
Apr 11, 2015
Takuboku Ishikawa: engaged observer
The society of Takuboku Ishikawa's era was in dramatic political flux, and its complex issues became his personal obsessions. After his death, Takuboku's preoccupations came to be seen as a symbol of the social and emotional upheavals of his times.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Sep 20, 2014
Lafcadio Hearn: 'Japanese Thru and Tru'
A small cage was opened at Lafcadio Hearn's funeral, setting birds into the air, the soul of the deceased presumably taking flight with them. His coffin was draped in chrysanthemums and fragrant olive, adorned by a laurel wreath. Seven Buddhist priests read the sutras at Kobudera (now Jishoin Enyuji...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jun 28, 2014
Mori classic was the epitome of Meiji style
There has been no period in the history of modern Japanese society so dramatic and so remarkably tumultuous and fluid as the Meiji Era (1868-1912), and no single work of fiction more revelatory in its depiction of that period than Ogai Mori's "The Wild Goose." Now we have, in Meredith McKinney's just...
COMMUNITY / Voices / Fiction
Jun 21, 2014
Rice: Connecting two nations that are natural friends
Haruko Harrison tells her story
COMMUNITY / Voices / Fiction
Jun 14, 2014
Rice: 'Get away from us. We are like poison'
Sachiko the nurse reads the diary of Haruko Harrison's mother
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Jun 7, 2014
Kengo Kuma: 'a product of place'
Renowned architect's new book, 'My Place,' reflects an awareness of humanity's close affinity to the world around us.
COMMUNITY / Voices / Fiction
Jun 7, 2014
Rice: Sowing the nascent seeds — my upbringing
Haruko Harrison begins her story
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Mar 1, 2014
Masako Shirasu: woman of the world
"If you use beautiful things every day, you will naturally cultivate an eye for beautiful things without giving it a second thought. In the end, you will be repelled when you encounter the ugly and the fake. If only all Japan would come to see this, how much more joyous our lives would be and how genial...
Tokyo's climate goals rely on a fuel that is falling out of favor
The Tokyo Hydrogen Museum in the capital's Koto Ward on Thursday. The capital is targeting the “full use” of hydrogen produced using renewable energy “in all fields” by 2050 as part of its decarbonization drive.
Spate of burglaries in Kanto highlight importance of home security
Police officers investigate near a house in Tokyo where a resident was assaulted by a group of burglars on Saturday.
Status quo or disruption? Breaking down the U.S. election's impact on Japan
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate, face off in an election Tuesday that will have wide-ranging implications for Japan.
Gifu police officer arrested over alleged sex with underage girl
The Gifu Prefectural Police headquarters in the city of Gifu
At Japan’s hottest festival, crowds threaten to smother the flames
The Kurama Fire Festival is one of Japan's most visceral 'matsuri' (festivals), but growing throngs of spectators could bring changes in the future.
Status quo or disruption? Breaking down the U.S. election's impact on Japan
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate, face off in an election Tuesday that will have wide-ranging implications for Japan.
Spate of burglaries in Kanto highlight importance of home security
Police officers investigate near a house in Tokyo where a resident was assaulted by a group of burglars on Saturday.
Tokyo's climate goals rely on a fuel that is falling out of favor
The Tokyo Hydrogen Museum in the capital's Koto Ward on Thursday. The capital is targeting the “full use” of hydrogen produced using renewable energy “in all fields” by 2050 as part of its decarbonization drive.
Cat companions and the 'healing fiction' boom
In recent years, anglophone publishers have perked up to the potential of “healing fiction,” driven by a healthy appetite for East Asian literature. Japan figures prominently in this literary landscape, and a fondness for felines in the "iyashikei" (healing type) genre has proven commercially viable abroad.
Keeper Mitch Langerak gets perfect send-off as Nagoya captures Levain Cup
Nagoya Grampus players celebrate after the club won the Levain Cup at National Stadium in Tokyo on Saturday

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Akira Oishi (left) and Shinichi Okanobori have taken on the responsibility of surveying the flora and fauna of Mount Tenran and Mount Tonosu in Saitama Prefecture.
Inside Japan's 100-year project to monitor its deteriorating biodiversity
By Alex K.T. Martin

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