Transport authorities launched a full-fledged investigation Sunday into the derailment of a bullet train on the Akita Shinkansen Line in Daisen, Akita Prefecture, on Saturday afternoon.
It's a dangerous, unpredictable world. Twice in January Chinese warships in the East China Sea challenged Japan's Maritime Self Defense Forces patrols in a manner deemed threatening. And on Feb. 12 came North Korea's nuclear test.
Here's an open secret: Japanese men have a bad international reputation on the romance front.
SELLING WOMEN: Prostitution, Markets and the Household in Early Modern Japan, by Amy Stanley. University of California Press, 2012, 282 pp., $49.95 (hardcover) In the vast cultural landscape, Japan fascinates the mainstream with manga and anime, the martial arts, Zen and kimono. Of course, ...
Kenta Maeda shook off worries about his form with five shutout innings as Japan beat China 5-2 in first-round Pool A of the World Baseball Classic on Sunday at Fukuoka Dome. Japan improved to 2-0 following a tough win over Brazil in Saturday evening’s ...
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. ...
AUSTIN COATES: Souvenirs and Letters, by Ramon Rodamilans. London: Athena Press, 2007, 140 pp, £5.99 (paper) The Spanish author of this memoir recognizes early on just how much his subject, the British writer and historian Austin Coates (1922-97), like Coates’ Vietnamese companion, “came from ...
THE RABBIT IN THE MOON/TSUKI NO USAGI by Kayoko Hashimoto. Kadokawa-shoten, 2007, 260 pp., ¥2,667 (cloth) EARTH PILGRIMAGE/PELLEGRINO TERRESTRE/CHIKYU JUNREI by Ban’ya Natsuishi, English translations by the author and Jim Kacian, Italian by Luca Toma. Milan, Italy: Albalibre, 2007, 146 pp., 10.00 euro (paper) ...
BASEBALL HAIKU: American and Japanese Haiku and Senryu on Baseball, edited with translations by Cor van den Heuvel & Nanae Tamura. W.W. Norton, 2007, 214 pp., $19.95 (cloth) In Ueno Park in Tokyo, among the museums and other attractions, there is a baseball ground. ...
HAILSTONES / ARARE / ZIARNA GRADU: Haiku by Taneda Santoka, English translations by John Stevens, Polish Translations by Wioletta Laskowska & Lidia Rozmus, with sumi-e by Lidia Rozmus. Deep North Press, 2006, 33 poem-cards, $50 (boxed) SANTOKA: A Translation With Photographic Images, English translations ...
THE THIRD PARTY by Glenn Patterson, Blackstaff Press, Belfast, 2007, 169 pp., £7.99 (paper) An unnamed businessman and a well-known novelist, both from Belfast, meet while checking into a hotel in Hiroshima. The recognition of a shared home, so far away, is awkward and ...
OUR SHARED JAPAN: An Anthology of Contemporary Irish Poetry, edited by Irene De Angelis & Joseph Woods (Dedalus Press) Tokyo Tower turned green on St. Patrick’s Day in March to mark the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Japan and Ireland, and this anthology ...
In many places, celebrations will be getting into full swing. But if you’re in Japan, by the time you read this, Christmas (kurisumasu) will have already been forgotten. Like everywhere else, in the runup before, there have been carols sung and trees and lights ...
OUR SHARED JAPAN: An Anthology of Contemporary Irish Poetry, edited by Irene De Angelis and Joseph Woods. Dublin: Dedalus Press, 2007, 232 pp., 20 euro (paper) The Irish writer Oscar Wilde spoke more than a century ago of something called “the Japanese effect,” in ...
Another Asia: Rabindranath Tagore and Okakura Tenshin, by Rustom Bharucha, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2006, 236 pp., $35 (cloth) This book examines the friendship engendered between two significant thinkers — one Indian and the other Japanese — who were highly representative of their ...
