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Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 23, 2016

Bob Dylan and the wind of literary idiocy

The 'Bard of Hibbing' is a poetico-musical revolution in one man and one body of work. It is this tour de force that the Nobel committee has recognized in its selection.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Feb 20, 2016

The ink-stained road: 'age of experience'

In the new age of experience that defines the travel accounts on Japan from the immediate pre- and postwar periods, writers began resisting the easy enamor of the Orient. Instead of viewing Japan as an exotic wonderland, they took a more considered, critical view of what they encountered.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Oct 17, 2015

'Base Nation' reveals the destructive tentacles of U.S. hegemony

People are often only aware of what is in their own backyard: the intrusiveness of a radar tower here, an ammunition dump there. David Vine's new book, "Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World," succeeds in shaking us out of our provincialism.
Japan Times
CULTURE / CULTURE SMASH
May 9, 2014

Manga becomes a major draw at Toronto Comic Arts Festival

The 11th annual Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF) kicks off May 10. As its title suggests, it's less a fan-focused pop convention than a platform for comics and graphic novels as art, and for the artists who create them. It has also emerged as a great friend to manga over the past few years.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Mar 10, 2013

An economist's guide to romance

THE ROMANTIC ECONOMIST, by William Nicolson. Short Books, 2013, 304 pp., £12 (hardcover)
Japan Times
WORLD
Jan 28, 2013

Feminists split over first lady

In the opening moments of her second turn at history, as Michelle Obama waved at celebrants along Pennsylvania Avenue, Americans clamored to see the first lady, who remains one of the most popular public figures in the country. In the most recent poll, 73 percent said they approve of the way she is handling...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 24, 2013

'Pi' among 'unfilmable' books conquered at last on the screen

There are certain novels they say just can't be filmed, but guess what? Most of them have been. "Dune"? "Naked Lunch"? "The Virgin Suicides"? "The 120 Days of Sodom"? "Ulysses"? All done — "Ulysses" twice, even.
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Jul 3, 2012

Strong winds linger from the microaggressions tempest

Readers' responses to Debito Arudou's May 1 Just Be Cause column, "Yes, I can use chopsticks: the everyday 'microaggressions' that grind us down," his followup June 5 JBC column, "Guestists, Haters, the Vested: Apologists take many forms," and Colin P.A. Jones' counterarticle, "Much ado, but microimportant"...
LIFE
Aug 22, 2010

Uneasy neighbors across the sea

August 22 is the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Annexation between Japan and Korea that came into effect on Aug. 29, 1910 — commemorated now in North and South Korea as a day of shame.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 20, 2010

Tales of Ueda Akinari and his contemporaries

With the advent of postmodernism in Japan from the 1980s, which fostered eclecticism and diverse stylistic practices, interest in the earlier Edo Period (1603-1868) was revived and it subsequently was embraced as a kindred spirit.
CULTURE / Books
Feb 21, 2010

Truly unique version of the foreigner's tale

Like a Yemenese bride-to-be who first sees the countenance of her fiance in a photo presented by relatives, Rebecca Otowa experienced a presentiment of her future in a black-and-white image of a building, a 350-year-old farmhouse in rural Japan.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Sep 27, 2009

Inner life of a giant revealed

REFLECTIONS IN A GLASS DOOR: Memory and Melancholy in the Personal Writings of Natsume Soseki, by Marvin Marcus. Honolulu: Hawaii University Press, 2009, 268 pp., $49 (hardcover) Author of a well-received study of the biographical writings of Mori Ogai ("Paragons of the Ordinary," 1993), Marvin Marcus...
EDITORIALS
May 5, 2008

Raise journalistic ethics

In November 2007, a Kyoto psychiatrist was prosecuted for leaking investigative materials to a journalist concerning a 17-year-old boy who was tried in family court in connection with a fire that killed his stepmother and two siblings. But the freelance journalist, who published a book using the leaked...
CULTURE / Books
Nov 11, 2007

Trapped between borders

Frontier Mosaic: Voices of Burma from the Lands In Between, by Richard Humphries. Orchid Press, 2007, 180 pp., $29.95 (paper) "A man on a motorbike comes by and we then follow him through the streets of Mae Sot." So begins one of the narrative vignettes from "Frontier Mosaic." Based on extensive travel...
Japan Times
LIFE
Aug 12, 2007

Japan's Paradise Lived

It's a strange world we're about to enter.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 16, 2006

An ambassador of enlightenment

When I was a teenager living in New York some 20 years ago, I bought a tiny introduction to Zen Buddhism from a bookstore in midtown Manhattan. A $1 clearance-sale copy, it was so small that I could slip it into my back pocket.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 20, 2006

The unique voice of Ryunosuke Akutagawa

RASHOMON AND SEVENTEEN OTHER STORIES, by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, translated by Jay Rubin, introduction by Haruki Murakami. London: Penguin Classics, 2006, 268 pp., £9.99 (paper). In what is still the finest assessment of Ryunosuke Akutagawa's life and work, Howard Hibbett complained that for most, the...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jun 4, 2006

Involuntary students of death

KAMIKAZE DIARIES: Reflections of Japanese Student Soldiers, by Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney. Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press, 2006, 206 pp., 13 b/w plates, $25 (cloth). War flourishes through caricature and some of these wartime creations live on long after their political usefulness is over. One...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 6, 2005

The attractive helplessness of a reluctant foreigner

THE TOWER OF LONDON: Tales of Victorian London, by Natsume Soseki, translated and introduced by Damian Flanagan, calligraphy by Kosaka Misuzu. London: Peter Owen, 2005, 240 pp., 12 illustrations, £14.95 (paper). In 1900 the Japanese government sent three young scholars to London to study and equip themselves...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Sep 2, 2004

"A Gathering Light," "The Coldest Day in the Zoo"

"A Gathering Light," Jennifer Donnelly, Bloomsbury; 2004; 383 pp. "Tell the truth!" It's not just children who get that all the time: Writers do, too. The only difference is that writers don't have to treat the truth too literally, as Jennifer Donnelly shows us in "A Gathering Light."
Japan Times
LIFE
Jul 11, 2004

Believe it ... or not

Japan's vast hoard of war booty known as Yamashita's Gold was long thought to be buried in caves in the Philippines. But in their book 'Gold Warriors,' Sterling and Peggy Seagrave sensationally claim that the treasure trove was secretly recovered -- and continues to oil the wheels of politics in Japan...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / ON THE BOOK TRAIL
Apr 1, 2004

"Sideways Stories from Wayside School," "Where Willy Went/ Cinderella's Bum and Other Bottoms"

"Sideways Stories from Wayside School," Louis Sachar, Bloomsbury; 2004; 139 pp.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Mar 28, 2004

Filling in the template for a changing Cambodia

CAMBODIA, by Michael Freeman. London: Reaktion Books, 2004, 198 pp., 43 color photographs, £19.95 (paper). With Angkor as its capital, the Khmer empire ruled over what is now central and southern Vietnam, southern Laos, Thailand and part of the Malay Peninsula. Now dwindled to Cambodia, Angkor's colossal...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 4, 2004

Informed feelings elicit the essence of Japan

There are many good books on Japan (as well as a number of bad ones), so how do you decide which ones are best? The decision is subjective but, objectively, I think that the best are informed with a certain peculiarity, and it is in this that I would find their pre-eminence. "There is but one way of...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Oct 20, 2002

When romancing medieval Japan, why stop at one?

ACROSS THE NIGHTINGALE FLOOR: Tales of the Otori (Book One), by Lian Hearn. Riverhead Books, 2002, 304 pp., $24.95 (cloth) For over a century, Asia has been a rich and enduring source of inspiration for fantasy and science fiction writers. Since James Hilton created the fantastic Himalayan utopia of...
CULTURE / Books
Jun 23, 2002

Following in the footsteps of Alexander and Marco Polo

AN UNEXPECTED LIGHT: Travels in Afghanistan, by Jason Elliot. Picador, 2001, 473 pp, 3,420 yen (paper) Jason Elliot's "An Unexpected Light" has been pigeon-holed in that genre of literature known as travelogue, but it is a great deal more. An account of the author's two visits to Afghanistan -- the first...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 4, 2001

Cities that go with the flow

LEARNING FROM THE JAPANESE CITY: West Meets East in Urban Design, by Barrie Shelton. London: E. and F.N. Spon/Routledge, 2001, 210 pp., profusely illustrated, 42.50 British pounds (cloth) In this interesting study of Japanese urban space, the author writes that when he thinks of the Western city he envisions...

Longform

Visitors to Kyoto walk along a street near Kiyomizu Temple in April. A popular tourist spot, Kyoto has seen what locals feel to be an overwhelming amount of tourists in 2024.
Is Japan ready for 60 million tourists?