Category: Non-fiction

Review—Noh as Living Art: Inside Japan’s Oldest Theatrical Tradition

May 17, 2021
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Yasuda has provided a witty and fresh approach to this art.

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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—Providence Was With Us: How a Japanese Doctor Turned the Afghan Desert Green

March 25, 2021
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Nakamura Tetsu’s account of his thirty-five years as a volunteer in the nebulous border regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan

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Reviewed by Chad Kohalyk One day in 1985, from the hills of Kunar province in northeastern Afghanistan, came three women dressed in chador, their faces covered. The two sisters and their mother were victims of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and had come to the hospital ward of Nakamura Tetsu, a volunteer doctor from Fukuoka More…

Review—Japan’s Quest for Stability in Southeast Asia: Navigating the Turning Points in Postwar Asia

January 25, 2021
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How Japan navigated independence movements and revolutions in Southeast Asia during a fractious postwar period.

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Review by Chad Kohalyk A rising China and receding America has Japan once again focused on the confluence of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Yet the recent Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) vision — to promote a new regional security environment anchored by India, Australia, Japan, and the United States — is in stark contrast More…

Review—The Forgotten Japanese

December 17, 2020
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A well-known ethnographer in Japan reveals voluminous details about countryside living before WWII.

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Miyamoto Tsuneichi, is author of many ethnographical books on Japanese society, but this is the only one I know of that has been translated into English (transl. Jeffrey Irish). Miyamoto is a well-known scholar and author in Japan. The Forgotten Japanese is a necessary read for anyone interested in Japanese lifestyles in the countryside from More…

Review—Finding the Heart Sutra by Alex Kerr

December 1, 2020

Powerful, mystical and concise, the Heart Sutra is believed to contain the condensed essence of all Buddhist wisdom.

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Kerr has proven an excellent student of friendship and fellowship and has himself become a vessel of wisdom which he now passes on to us readers.

Review—The Territory of Japan: Its History and Legal Basis

November 7, 2020
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Serita Kentaro retraces and analyzes the history of negotiations over the Northern Territories, Takeshima and Senkaku Islands.

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Japan’s three territorial disputes with neighbouring countries — the Northern Territories (Russia), Takeshima (Korea), and the Senkaku Islands (China) — all arose in the post-war period. The battle over them is being waged not by guns and butter, but through peaceful means in the courts of law. Less dangerous though this might be, it is no less complicated.

Review—Inaka: Portraits of Life in Rural Japan

October 7, 2020
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In eighteen chapters, this anthology takes an epic journey the length of Japan, from subtropical Okinawa, through the Japanese heartland, all the way to the wilds of Hokkaido.

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Review by Renae Lucas-Hall “It’s easy to fall under the spell of rural Japan” is the first sentence in the introduction to this anthology that sets the reader upon a path to enchantment. Each essay acts as a beguiling incantation that will amplify one’s desire to explore the Japanese countryside. If you’re an avid reader More…