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November 22, 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."
Features
Apr 17, 2005
It's time Japan jumped on its cultural bandwagon
The Japanese have never regarded their culture as universal.
Features
Apr 10, 2005
The God Gap: Japan and the clash of civilizations
There are many differences between Japan and the West, both historical and contemporary, but there is no gap so gaping and, perhaps, unbridgeable as the "God Gap."
Features
Apr 3, 2005
Does language 'difficulty' speak of a sense beyond mere words?
I have often been told by Japanese people that theirs is the most difficult language in the world. Virtually all the Japanese people who have said this to me, I might add, have spoken no other language than their own.
Features
Mar 27, 2005
Mrs. Matsui
It was an open secret in my husband's course on modern Japanese literature at Radcliffe in the 1960s that his inspiration came not directly from the prose and poetry of Japan but from his absolute devotion to me.
COMMUNITY
Dec 26, 2004
Revealing 'The Japanese Sensibility': Humanism
What could be said for the human being after Nanking, Dresden, Auschwitz, Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Whatever the motivation, this is what we did to each other, and continue to do to this very hour. How can a writer write about goodness when people of all nations, autocratic or democratic, take up murder...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 19, 2004
Revealing 'The Japanese Sensibility': Iconoclasm
In many senses the Japanese people have been in denial since the end of World War II.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 12, 2004
Revealing 'The Japanese Sensibility': Innocence
How can innocence and worldliness coexist in a people? Does not the black whip of cynicism, with its burr and sting, send naivete sailing for more gentle and accommodating shores?
Features
Dec 5, 2004
Revealing 'The Japanese Sensibility': Intimacy
To punish men for their sins The smoothest skin The longest black hair All that Is me
Japan Times
Features
Nov 28, 2004
Revealing 'The Japanese Sensibility': Modernity
Who was this man who wrote, "When I die I forbid the erection of anything resembling a monument, and if erected I am vehemently opposed to any words being engraved into it, and if people must engrave words into it I absolutely despise when they gush on and on, because I'd rather that someone just rolled...
Japan Times
Features
Oct 10, 2004
A Blade of Light
This was an overexposed day, a negative with excessive contrast. The sun seemed to shine only on Grace's little patch of land, concentrating its white power on the single eucalyptus tree opposite the window and the dry ground around it.
Japan Times
Features
Sep 26, 2004
Disillusioned bard of a bygone Japan
In the century that has passed since the death of Lafcadio Hearn on Sept. 26, 1904, the Japanese people have studiously formulated and maintained a myth -- and they have done it with all the tools and vigor of nostalgia at their disposal.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 4, 2004
No winners or losers in 'The Face of Jizo'
In the early 1960s, Hisashi Inoue, the author of the original play "The Face of Jizo," was working under contract as a writer at NHK. The idea for the play came when he was sent to Hiroshima in the summer to do a program about the anti-nuclear movement.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 29, 2003
An artist in a land of ice and snow
Jorg Schmeisser traveled to Antarctica on the icebreaker Aurora Australis in 1998. The result was a series of works -- etchings, drawings and paintings -- that became "Breaking the Ice," a major exhibition showing in Kyoto and scheduled for Tokyo and Yokohama, that explores the majesty and uncanny beauty...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 17, 2000
The stage is set for genuine change
This is the final article of a 10-part series on contemporary Japan.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 10, 2000
The Japanese language goes international
This is the ninth of a 10-part series on contemporary Japan.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 3, 2000
Middle-class myth comes tumbling down
This is the eighth of a 10-part series on contemporary Japan.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 26, 2000
With affluence comes intellectual decay
Among the intellectuals it is not hard to detect the New Pessimism; among the citizenry, the Same Old Apathy. Today I wish to focus on the former.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 19, 2000
Education yesterday, today and tomorrow
My four children have attended Japanese schools from kindergarten up. Over the years there have been innumerable positive experiences connected with this. Yet one thing has always struck me as, at best, blatantly incongruous. Virtually every principal addressing pupils and parents at the commencement...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 12, 2000
Japan's not-so-silent media conspiracy
Some months ago I went up to Tohoku to give a public lecture sponsored by a television station. After the talk there was a delightful, informal dinner, during which I chatted with an old friend, a producer at the station.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 5, 2000
Do the Japanese have a sense of humor?
A Jewish peddler boldly visits the house of a rich nobleman. The place is Rome and the time, well, about 2,000 years ago, plus or minus a few decades here or there.
Two of America’s biggest debt holders are dumping Treasurys
The U.S. Treasury building in Washington. Investors in Japan and China sold a pile of U.S. debt in the last quarter, just before the U.S. presidential election.
Ishiba aggravates his own political failures with diplomatic faux pas
Prime Minster Shigeru Ishiba is greeted at the APEC summit in Lima by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday. The Japanese leader was criticized for remaining seated while meeting several world leaders at the event.
Japan's 3.31 million visitors in October set monthly record
Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto in December 2023. Famous autumn leaf colors contributed to increased tourism demand last month from many markets across Asia, Europe and North America, the Japan National Tourism Organization has said.
Japan ranks last in romance satisfaction for second straight year
In a survey of 31 countries, Japan ranked last in terms of those who felt loved, with just 51% of respondents saying so.
Ruling coalition and DPP strike last-minute deal over economic policy
DPP policy chief Makoto Mahaguchi speaks at the party's policy gathering in Tokyo on Wednesday.
Japan, U.K. and Italy discuss inviting more countries to joint fighter project
A new concept model of a next-generation fighter jet to be jointly developed by Japan, Britain and Italy is on display in Farnborough, Hampshire, in July.
Haruki Murakami's 'The City and Its Uncertain Walls' gives deep deja vu
For “The City and Its Uncertain Walls,” translated into English by Philip Gabriel, Haruki Murakami confronts the ghosts who won't leave him alone.
Japanese expats in Asia find community through rugby
The Taiwan Fivewoods celebrate their victory at the 2023 Asian Japanese Rugby Cup in December of last year.
In Fukushima, a weekend of prose, poetry and translation
Aomori-based writer JJ Carter presented on tabletop gaming as creative inspiration for building characters and narratives.
For Dr. Nakamats, aging is just experience in action
Though he didn't win the recent gubernatorial election in Tokyo, the 96-year-old Dr. Nakamats' run was seen as inspirational in Japan's aging society.

Podcast

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

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