Ready for a little Yuletide reading?

| Dec 14, 2008

Ready for a little Yuletide reading?

BASHO: The Complete Haiku, translated by Jane Reichhold (Kodansha International) Japan’s most revered poet has never before had all of his haiku translated into English and gathered into one volume. Translator Jane Reichhold spent nearly 10 years at this task and our reward is ...

Kabuki rescued by national defeat

| Nov 30, 2008

Kabuki rescued by national defeat

KABUKI’S FORGOTTEN WAR: 1931-1945, by James R. Brandon. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2008, 466 pp., with photographs, $52 (cloth) The role that Japan’s “classic” drama, kabuki, played during the 15-year “Sacred War” is largely undiscussed, and even in Japan itself it is usually ...

What's between sex and gender?

| Nov 16, 2008

What's between sex and gender?

GENDER GYMNASTICS: Performing and Consuming Japan’s Takarazuka Revue, by Leonie R. Stickland. Melbourne, Australia: Trans Pacific Press, 2008, 282 pp., with five plates (I through V). A$49.95 (cloth) The Takarazuka Revue is one of the several entertainment anomalies of Japan. It is an all-female ...

| Nov 2, 2008

Some 19th-century blood and gore

THE STRAW SANDAL OR THE SCROLL OF THE HUNDRED CRABS by Santo Kyoden, translated by Carmen Blacker, introduction by P.F. Kornicki. Global Oriental, 2008, 116 pp., 28 b/w illustrations by Utagawa Toyokuni, £35 (cloth) Santo Kyoden (pen name Iwase Samuru, 1761-1816) was among the ...

| Oct 19, 2008

A video archive that is music to the ears

JAPANESE VOICES: A Video Archive of Singing Styles and Techniques in the Japanese Language. Compiled, written and edited by Ichiro Nakayama. English translation by Mika Kimula under the supervision of Christopher Yohmei Blasdel. Osaka: Ad Popolo, 2008, Vol. I, 148 pp. (paper); Vol. II, ...

| Sep 21, 2008

Simplicity restored by poetic license

SONG AND STORIES OF THE “KOJIKI” as retold by Yoko Danno, illustrated by Horaku Nakamura. Tokyo/Ontario: Ahadada Books, 2008, 162 pp. $14.95 (paper) The “Kojiki (Record of Ancient Matters)” is Japan’s oldest extant chronicle — a collection of events from the mythological age up ...

| Sep 7, 2008

Multiple interpretations of a tale told in many forms

ENVISIONING “THE TALE OF GENJI”: Media, Gender, and Cultural Production, edited by Haruo Shirane. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008, 400 pp., 11 color plates, 66 b/w illustrations, $32.50 (paper) “The Tale of Genji,” Murasaki Shikibu’s long monogatari, upwards of a thousand pages in ...

| Aug 17, 2008

'One scene/one shot,' one director

KENJI MIZOGUCHI and the Art of Japanese Cinema by Tadao Sato, translated by Brij Tankha, edited by Aruna Vasudev and Latika Padgaonkar. Oxford: Berg Books, 2008, 196 pp., with 35 photographs, £17.99 (paper) This is the English translation of Tadao Sato’s defining study of ...

| Aug 10, 2008

Best notes for the bamboo flute

THE SHAKUHACHI MANUAL FOR LEARNING, Revised Edition, by Christopher Yohmei Blasdel. Printed Matter Press, 2008, 202 pp. with many illustrations, musical notations, and an attached CD of practice exercises. ¥3,990 (paper) The shakuhachi is a vertical bamboo flute with five finger holes and a ...

| Aug 3, 2008

The new language of translated films

CINEMA BABEL: Translating Global Cinema, by Abe Mark Nornes. Univ. of Minnesota Press, 2008, 304 pp.,$22.50 (paper) Though foreign film is now seen by all, we are still dependent on translation to discover what is going on up on the big screen or on ...

| Jul 27, 2008

Zeami's notes: appreciating blossoming performances

ZEAMI: Performance Notes, translated by Tom Hare. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008, 528 pp., $45 (cloth) Zeami Motokiyo (1363-1443), the actor, playwright and aesthetic theorist who established the Noh drama as a classical theatrical art, left behind some 21 treatises. These were discovered ...

| Jul 20, 2008

Tokyo: A guide for a certain type of resident

TOKYO: The Complete Residents’ Guide, by Andy Sharp, Beau Miller, Frank Spignese, Jennifer Geaconne-Cruz, Julian Satterthwaite, Karryn Cartelle, Tamsin Bradshaw. Dubai: Explorer Group, Ltd., 2008, 444 pp., profusely illustrated, $14.99 (paper) This book, says the introduction, “is going to help you to get to ...