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December 22, 2024
 

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David Burleigh
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Sep 28, 2013
Biography of Masaoka Shiki excels in the expanded details
Haiku, the short Japanese poem now proliferating overseas, scarcely needs an introduction anymore. Its three great pillars, widely read even in translation, are the poets Matsuo Basho (1641-1694), its first creator, then Yosa Buson (1716-1784) and Kobayashi Issa (1763-1828), who renewed it.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Sep 7, 2013
Searching to define difficult, elusive concept
The title of this book is exquisite, while the cover illustration is of something else, different yet just as exquisite. This is appropriate because the aesthetic concept that the book considers is not just beautiful, but elusive and difficult to define.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Aug 31, 2013
Remarkable story of the independence, dedication of Isamu Noguchi's mother
Like many people, I like soft light and use lampshades of Japanese paper from the successful Akari series designed by the American sculptor Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988), certainly the artist's greatest influence on individual lives, especially at home. Some of his own upbringing is described in this book,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jul 13, 2013
Illuminating the interplay between Japanese poetry and pictures
This cleverly titled book combines two subjects, for the "art" that it describes is not just the art of haiku composition but that of the pictures that frequently accompany the poems, often by the same person. "If haiku is a worldwide phenomenon, haiga (haiku painting) is almost unknown," says the author....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Apr 7, 2013
A portrait of the poet as a child
This remarkable book is an autobiography of childhood, written by the poet Mutsuo Takahashi (born 1937) when he was 32, and issued in 1970, although its separate chapters had appeared as a series of essays in a magazine the year before.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Mar 3, 2013
Sensual poetry on love, marriage
ONNA NI, by Shuntaro Tanikawa, with etchings by Yoko Sano, translated by William I. Elliott and Kazuo Kawamura. Shueisha, 2012, 80 pp., ¥1,470 (paperback)
CULTURE / Books
Jan 13, 2013
Exploring the past to makes sense of Meiji modernity
PILGRIMAGES TO THE ANCIENT TEMPLES IN NARA, by Tetsuro Watsuji, translated by Hiroshi Nara. Merwin Asia, 2012, 252 pp., $35.00 (paperback) In the Japanese original, "Koji Junrei" (1919), this book is a classic, much imitated and still quite widely read, although it has also been sometimes controversial....
CULTURE / Books / THE YEAR IN BOOKS
Dec 23, 2012
Seasonality, internal awareness
"Japan and the Culture of the Four Seasons: Nature, Literature and the Arts" (Columbia University Press) by Haruo Shirane. The whole seasonal consciousness of Japan, so meticulously considered and observed, is an intangible cultural tradition, though it has a certain physical embodiment in saijiki, the...
CULTURE / Books
Oct 28, 2012
Is poetry lost or found in translation?
BRIGHT MOON, WHITE CLOUDS: Selected Poems of Li Po, edited and translated by J.P. Seaton. Shambhala, 2012, 224 pp., $14.95 (paperback) KANEKO TOHTA: Selected Haiku 1937-1960, translated by The Kon Nichi Translation Group. Red Moon Press, 2012, 256 pp., $12.00 (paperback) Two books of poetry, both pocket-size,...
CULTURE / Books
Oct 14, 2012
Developing a natural aesthetic
JAPAN AND THE CULTURE OF THE FOUR SEASONS: Nature, Literature and the Arts, by Haruo Shirane. Columbia University Press, 2012. 311 pp., $29.50 (hardcover) The starting point for this illuminating study lay in the author's curiosity about the formation of the saijiki, or seasonal almanacs, that have been...
CULTURE / Books
Jun 24, 2012
A woman's world
PASSIONATE FRIENDSHIP: The Aesthetics of Girls' Culture in Japan, by Deborah Shamoon. Univ. of Hawai'i Press, 2012, 181 pp., $27.00 (paperback) The subject of this book is one that is baffling to outsiders, but visible on the streets of Tokyo, especially the more fashionable parts, and in fiction, dress...
CULTURE / Books
May 6, 2012
Japan's modern haiku master
IKIMONOFUEI: Poetic Composition on Living Things, by Kaneko Tohta. Red Moon Press, 2011, 91 pp., $12.00 (paperback) THE FUTURE OF HAIKU: An Interview with Kaneko Tohta. Red Moon Press 2011, 137 pp., $12.00 (paperback) These two handy pocket-size volumes are the first of four to be issued by the Red Moon...
CULTURE / Books
Apr 1, 2012
Japan's 'spiritual recrudescence'
SOLDIER OF GOD: MacArthur's Attempt to Christianize Japan, by Ray A. Moore. Merwin Asia, 2011, 167 pp., $35.00 (paperback) India, the jewel in the crown of the British Empire, the largest the world has ever known, was won mainly by attrition, though some of the later additions to it, like Burma, were...
CULTURE / Books
Feb 5, 2012
Bold move into Tamura's cold verse
TAMURA RYUICHI: On the Life and Work of a 20th Century Master, edited by Takako Lento & Wayne Miller. Pleiades Press, 2011, 175 pages, $12.99 (paper) The expression of the poet Ryuichi Tamura, as he looks out at the reader from the cover of this book, reminded me just a little of photographs of the Irish...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Dec 25, 2011
Close-up on a people's disaster
"Everything Is Broken: Life Inside Burma" is the second book by Emma Larkin, a Burmese-speaking American journalist who gathers her touching stories traveling incognito in Burma (aka Myanmar).
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Nov 13, 2011
Erotica to celebrate and educate
The word shunga ("spring picture"), used to identify woodblock prints that portray erotic subjects, is not simply a euphemism for the awakening of natural urges. Rather, as both these books inform us, it is an abbreviation of a longer Chinese name, shunkyu higa ("secret pictures from the Spring Palace"),...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Oct 30, 2011
Sheer delight of graceful Kurahara
There is a persistent hum of activity among small-press publications in Japan, much of it concerned with poetry and a good deal of it translation.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Sep 11, 2011
Implacable merger of aesthetic and political
"Trespasses" may be a puzzling term (if you grew up with the Lord's Prayer), but in a foreword to this selection of writings by Masao Miyoshi (1928-2009), Frederic Jameson speaks of the "Victorianist who turns into a Japanologist" and of the "implacable unification of the aesthetic and the political"...
CULTURE / Books
Apr 3, 2011
Burma, the broken country
EVERYTHING IS BROKEN: The Untold Story of Disaster Under Burma's Military Regime, by Emma Larkin. Granta, 2010, 265 pp., £12.99 (paper) Tropical storms are given names by meteorological offices around the world. In English we generally prefer to be anthropomorphic, using male and female names alternately,...
CULTURE / Books
Feb 13, 2011
Case of the mysterious mister
WHO IS MR SATOSHI?, by Jonathan Lee. William Heinemann, 2010, 295 pp., £12.99 (hardcover) Rob Fossick, a 41-year-old photographer, is drinking a glass of butterscotch schnapps when he witnesses the death of his mother in a retirement home, and is then left to sort out her effects.
Freed anti-whaling campaigner Paul Watson arrives in France
U.S.-Canadian anti-whaling environmental activist Paul Watson, who was released from prison in Greenland's capital Nuuk after five months in detention, arrives with Lamya Essemlali, president of Sea Shepherd France, at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Roissy-en-France, near Paris, on Friday.
Nippon Steel alleges undue White House influence on doomed deal review
U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the economy at the Brookings Institution in Washington on Dec. 10.
Record 78% of people in Japan feel anxious, government survey finds
The public opinion survey on people's lives, conducted by the Cabinet Office, found that 28.1% of respondents think that their standard of living is at a lower-middle level among the general public — the highest percentage to give that response in 35 years.
Police raided suspect's home to arrest him after fatal Kitakyushu stabbing
Broken window glass is seen at Masanori Hirabaru's house in Kitakyushu's Kokuraminami Ward.
Taiwan lawmakers brawl over bills that would 'damage democracy'
Lawmakers from the Democratic Progressive Party and opposition party Kuomintang brawl in parliament in Taipei on Friday.
Casual workouts, cool living, ‘complete’ food: Japan’s health trends of 2024
In 2024, efficiency trumped effort among Japan's fitness-focused aspirants.
The mighty Mekong River's growing plastic problem
A group of elephant keepers in Chiang Saen, Thailand, remove plastic waste from the Ruak River, a tributary of the Mekong River, as a pair of Asian elephants bathe behind them.
Japanese officials inspect Yokota Air Base over PFAS concerns
The Yokota Air Base in western Tokyo in September 2019. An inspection of the base by Japanese government officials on Friday came amid public pressure to investigate suspected links between the use of PFAS-containing firefighting foam by the U.S. base and contamination of soil and groundwater in western Tokyo.
Crime numbers rise in Japan for second straight year
A police officer stands in front of the residence of a man alleged to have stabbed two junior high school students in Kitakyushu.
A year of Oscar wins and a quiet push for diversity
Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “Evil Does Not Exist,” released in Japanese theaters in April, sharply dramatizes the clash between rural and urban values. The film won five awards at the 2023 Venice Film Festival, including the second-place Silver Lion prize.

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