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Podcasts

BOA Podcast 11: Robert Whiting Talks Baseball and Tokyo Junkie

May 7, 2021

In this episode of the Books on Asia podcast, show host Amy Chavez talks with Robert Whiting about his just released memoir Tokyo Junkie: 60 Years of Bright Lights and Back Alleys . . . and Baseball (Stone Bridge Press, April, 2021). Whiting is known for his numerous books on Japanese baseball: The Chrysanthemum and the Bat, You Gotta Have Wa, and The Samurai Way of Baseball. He’s also penned a book about gangsters called Tokyo Underworld. In this episode of the podcast, Whiting talks about all these books as well as what its like to write a memoir.

Podcast Show Notes:
The show starts out as Whiting tells how he came to Japan in 1962 and worked for the CIA. At the time, Japan was preparing for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and Whiting elucidates the transformation of Tokyo as the city prepared to host the Games. He contrasts that with the upcoming 2021 Tokyo Olympics to show how far Tokyo has come in 60 years.

Whiting talks about attending Sophia University where he studied politics, and why he returned to the U.S. His homecoming led to his first gig writing The Chrysanthemum and the Bat and after that, a chance to come back to Japan with “Time/Life.”

While working in Tokyo, he started hanging out with gangsters at the bars which, eventually, led to his writing Tokyo Underworld.

Lastly, Whiting talks about his life with his long-time wife Machiko, and how he followed her career around the world for her position as Officer for United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Whiting shares some writing advice as well as his favorite books on Japan:

Japan Diary by Mark Gayn

Five Gentlemen of Japan: The Portrait of a Nation’s Character by Frank Gibney

Typhoon in Tokyo: The Occupation and Its Aftermath by Harry Emerson Wildes

MacArthur’s Japan by Russell Brines

Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II by John W. Dower

Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan by Jake Adelstein

Japanamerica by Roland Kelts

Anything by Alex Kerr, Richard Lloyd Parry or Peter Tasker.

See Books on Asia’s review of Robert Whiting’s memoir Tokyo Junkie

The Books on Asia Podcast is sponsored by Stone Bridge Press, publisher of fine books on Asia for over 30 years:

Podcasts

BOA Podcast 9: Janine Beichman on translating Japanese Haiku and Tanka

April 8, 2021

In this episode of The Books on Asia Podcast host Amy Chavez talks with author and translator Janine Beichman, whose translations include two books of poems compiled by Makoto Ōoka: Sleepless Tossing of the Planets: Selected Poems (Kurodohan, 2019) and Ori Ori no Uta: Poems for All Seasons (Tankoban, 2001). She has also penned two biographies: Masaoka Shiki: His Life and Works (Cheng & Tsui Co 2002) and Embracing the Firebird: Yosano Akiko and the Rebirth of the Female Voice in Modern Japanese Poetry (Univ. Hawaii Press, 2002). Just last week, she released a new translation called Well-Versed: Exploring Modern Japanese Haiku by Ozawa Minoru (Japan Library/JPIC).

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Podcasts

BOA Podcast 6: Lena Baibikov, translator of Haruki Murakami non-fiction

December 15, 2019


 

In this episode of the Hon podcast, host Amy Chavez talks with Lena Baibikov who has translated Haruki Murakami’s non-fiction works from Japanese into Russian. Lena has translated What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, Radio Murakami and a book of Murakami’s short stories as well as works by Banana Yoshimoto, Ryu Murakami, and Yukio Mishima and several children’s book authors. This podcast recording takes place in Lena’s kitchen in Ashiya, just 100 meters from where Murakami’s parents lived until the Kobe Earthquake of 1995. Lena also took Amy on a tour of the neighborhood Murakami grew up in. She tells us how she got started translating and what it is that intrigues her about Murakami’s works. (Click “more” below to see the Show Notes).

 

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Podcasts

BOA Podcast 5: William Scott Wilson, author of Walking the Kiso Road

May 31, 2019


In this episode of the “Hon” podcast, host Amy Chavez talks with William Scott Wilson, author and translator of over a dozen books on Japan and China. They briefly discuss a few of these including, Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai (by Yamamoto Tsunetomo), The Book of 5 Rings (by Miyamoto Musashi), and Cultivating Ch’i: A Samurai Physician’s Teachings on the Way of Health (by Kaibara Ekiken) before they zero in on the writing of Walking the Kiso Road. In this episode the author reveals a surprising fact about himself that we never knew before! (hint: If you like to kayak, you’ll definitely want to check this out). Show Notes available by clicking “more” below but be warned, they include spoilers.

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Podcasts

BOA Podcast 3: Juliet Winters Carpenter talks about translating Japanese Literature

September 29, 2018

In this episode of the Books on Asia podcast, Amy meets up with Juliet Winters Carpenter to talk about her 70 or so translated works of Japanese literature including Shion Miura’s The Great Passage, Minae Mizumura’s A True Novel, Shiba Ryōtaro’s Clouds Above the Hill, Jun’ichiro Saga’s Memories of Wind and Waves, and Abe Kōbō’s Secret Rendezvous. (more…)

Podcasts

BOA Podcast 2: Judith Pascoe on Wuthering Heights

July 6, 2018

In this episode of the Books on Asia Podcast, Amy talks with Dr. Judith Pascoe in her office on the campus of Florida State University while a Brontëesque storm rages outside their window. Pascoe discusses aspects of her book On the Bullet Train with Emily Brontë: Wuthering Heights in Japan, and even offers up some unique Japanese language learning tips.

You’ll find her book, as well as others discussed in the podcast in Issue 2 of the Books on Asia website.