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Silvio Berlusconi has failed in his attempt to topple the Italian government, leaving him weaker than ever and zapping the aura of invincibility that has surrounded him for two decades as he faces the possible loss of his Senate seat and a ban from ...
Hatsudai has a lot going for it. This quiet low-rise residential neighborhood just minutes west of Shinjuku boasts a friendly traditional shōtengai (shopping street) and a lively annual Awa Odori dance festival. Now add to that a really outstanding restaurant. Anis opened in early ...
International events undermine Japan's democracy. Shame on the International Olympic Committee for being a party to it.
In the glitzy and gossipy world of Japanese celebrity, hardly a week goes by without revelations being made about — or made by — Ichikawa Ebizo XI. For years, the charismatic young star of the kabuki world has never long been out of the ...
Reigning champion Kei Nishikori made quick work of Feliciano Lopez, walloping the Spaniard in a straight-sets victory Thursday to reach the quarterfinals of the Rakuten Japan Open. The world No. 13 Nishikori needed little over an hour to put away Lopez, 7-6 (7-4), 6-0 ...
This is an impassioned book, the story of an insurgency in Burma drawn from interviews with those who experienced it. The narrative tells how the writer, Mac McClelland, traveled to Thailand to work as a volunteer with a group called Burma Action, and stayed ...
Of the many cultural exports from Japan, the haiku has been one of the most successful, if recognizability is anything to go by. THE HAIKU HANDBOOK: How to Write, Teach and Appreciate Haiku, by William J. Higginson and Penny Harter. 25th Anniversary Edition. Kodansha ...
“Theippan Maung Wa” is the pen name under which a Burmese member of the Indian Civil Service wrote stories about his work for the British administration in the 1930s. The 150 tales that he composed, in a new and simple style, were popular contemporary ...
The coincidence between the titles of these two volumes is accidental, but nonetheless fortuitous, for together they serve to memorialize the English poet James Kirkup (1918-2009), who died on May 10 last year. CHU-I/MESSAGE FROM BUTTERFLY, by Michio Nakahara. Translated by James Kirkup and ...
THE LURE OF CHINA: Writers From Marco Polo to J.G. Ballard, by Frances Wood. Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2009, 283 pp., £19.99 (hardcover) Not many readers follow the adventures of Robinson Crusoe as far as China, or even realize he went ...
THE EDO INHERITANCE, by Tokugawa Tsunenari. I-House Press, 2009, 200 pp., ¥2,500 (hardcover) The Edo Period (1603-1868) is frequently regarded as a dark, repressive age, when Japan was held in an iron grip by a military government that had closed its borders to the ...
WHITE PETALS by Harue Aoki. Shichigatsudo, 2008, 126 pp., ¥1,500 (paper) HYAKUNIN ISSHU, introduced by Mutsuo Takahashi, translated by Emiko Miyashita and Michael Dylan Welch. PIE Books, 2008, 420 pp., ¥3,800 (paper) The hefty bilingual edition of the classic poetry collection “Hyakunin Isshu” has ...
HAIKU MIND: 108 Poems to Cultivate Awareness & Open Your Heart, by Patricia Donegan. Boston & London: Shambhala, 2008, 231 pp., $18 (cloth) 21-SEIKI HAIKU NO JIKUU / THE HAIKU UNIVERSE FOR THE 21ST CENTURY: Japanese Haiku 2008, edited by Modern Haiku Association. Nagata-shobo, ...
21-SEIKI HAIKU NO JIKUU / THE HAIKU UNIVERSE FOR THE 21ST CENTURY: Japanese Haiku 2008, edited by Modern Haiku Association. Nagata-shobo, 2008, 216 pp., ¥2,500 (paper) HAIKU MIND: 108 Poems to Cultivate Awareness & Open Your Heart, by Patricia Donegan. Boston & London: Shambhala, ...
“Wabi-sabi,” which is two words combined, represents in abbreviated form an elusive concept that is key to the understanding of traditional Japanese aesthetics. Indeed, rather than a single concept, it is a cluster of ideas that permeate artistic practice in Japan, or at least ...
SAKHALIN ISLAND by Anton Chekhov, translated by Brian Reeve (Oneworld Classics) “The Japanese were the first to begin exploring Sakhalin, starting in 1613,” says Anton Chekhov in his detailed 1890 account of conditions on the northern island. I picked up this book after visiting ...
A SLEEPING TIGER / DREAMS OF MANHATTAN: Simultaneous Poetry, Photographs and Sound, by Yoko Danno, James C. Hopkins and Bernard Stoltz. The Ikuta Press, Kobe, 2008, 28 pp., ¥2,500 (cloth) FLYING POPE: 127 Haiku, by Ban’ya Natsuishi, translations by Ban’ya Natsuishi and Jim Kacian. ...