By Haga Tōru (Japan Library, 2021) Transl. Juliet Winters Carpenter Review by Cody Poulton Lightning— girdled by waves the islands of Japan This haiku by Yosa Buson (1716-1784) captures a snapshot of Japan in the Tokugawa era: isolated, peaceful, self-contained. The Tokugawa era (aka Edo period), which stretched from 1603 until its fall in 1868, More…
Category: Reviews
Review—Things Remembered and Things Forgotten
Review—How Human is Human?: The View from Robotics Research
The Other Ishiguro Review by Cody Poulton Last month in Books on Asia I reviewed Klara and the Sun and contrasted Kazuo Ishiguro with another author with the same surname. Well, here’s a book by the other Ishiguro, Hiroshi, who happens to make robots—and not just imagine them. Ishiguro Hiroshi is probably the most famous More…
Review—Yamamba: In Search of the Japanese Mountain Witch
(Stone Bridge Press, June 22, 2021) Review by Jann Williams Over two-thirds of Japan is covered with forested mountains. Traditionally these are sacred places, viewed as dwelling places of the dead and ancestral spirits, and as a liminal space between this world and the other world. Yama, the Japanese word for ‘mountain,’ is reflected in More…
Review—Noh as Living Art: Inside Japan’s Oldest Theatrical Tradition
Review by Cody Poulton This slim volume, at just over 100 pages, is a primer to noh, Japan’s classic performance art. First appearing in Japanese, the text was translated by Kawamoto Nozomu, who was raised in the United States and currently trains with the author in noh utai singing. The work was published by Japan More…
Review—First Person Singular, by Haruki Murakami
Review—The Gion Festival: Exploring its Mysteries
Review by Cody Poulton It’s a bitter irony that a festival that is nearly as old as Kyoto, dedicated to ridding the city of pestilence in the hot and sticky month of July, was cancelled by the world-wide coronavirus pandemic last year. 2021 bodes no better: the great processions of splendid floats through the city, More…
Review—Multispecies Cities: Solarpunk Urban Futures (Speculative Fiction)
Review by Leanne Ogasawara Set primarily in the Asia-Pacific, the twenty-four stories of this new collection of climate fiction seek to imagine what cities might look like in a future of multi-species co-existence and green justice. Firmly planted in the new genre of solarpunk, the stories are filled with a polyphony of voices—some non-human and More…
Review—Lonely Planet Best Day Hikes Japan
Review by Wes Lang My time in Japan coincides directly with the history of Lonely Planet’s Hiking in Japan guidebook. I arrived on these shores in March of 2001, just one month after the release of the first edition of the guide. I soon picked up a copy of the teal and black cover and More…
Review—Earthlings: A Novel
Grove Press (October 8, 2020) Review by Tina deBellegarde Earthlings by Sayaka Murata (transl. Ginny Tapley Takemori) is a unique literary experience, one that is impossible to pigeonhole into any specific genre. It opens as a coming-of-age story, evolves into psychological suspense, and settles into dark fantasy and horror. As she did in Convenience Store More…