OSAKA — For the Kansai region's foreign residents, a night out in Osaka has not usually meant a literary experience. Unlike neighboring Kyoto, with its reputation as a mecca for foreign artists, writers and poets, one did not usually walk into an Osaka bar or restaurant expecting to hear quality short stories or to engage in thoughtful conversations about literature, Japanese or otherwise.
But thanks to Tracy Slater from Boston, Osaka's image among Kansai's jaded long-term Western residents as a literary desert (at least as far as English-language literature is concerned) is starting to change.
Slater is the force behind Four Stories, a monthly literary event that alternates between Boston and Osaka, and, occasionally, Tokyo. Four short-story writers, poets, essayists and translators read aloud from selected works in an informal setting, and receive encouragement and feedback from the audience.