In 1933, when Junichiro Tanizaki (1886-1965) published his short but landmark essay "In Praise of Shadows," it could hardly be seen as anything other than a riposte to the "enlightening" agenda of the great cultural critic Fukuzawa Yukichi of the preceding Meiji Era (1868-1912). Fukuzawa ...

Japanese society and culture seem intrinsically suited to bicycles, which require a degree of safety of environment and intimacy that are alien to many thunderously car-based, brash and crime-ridden Western societies.

This 1957 novel has at its heart Shusaku Endo's fascination with a seemingly tranquil and civilized postwar Japan still traumatized by the horrors of the Pacific War. Even a harmless-looking gas station attendant might be a grizzled war veteran involved in brutal killings on ...

Ask just about anyone with a keen interest in Japan to name their favorites from the nation's rich literary history and they are likely to rattle off a few famous names. But ask the same person for their favorite Japanese critics, and stony silence ...

After flirtations with city and country, a roaming suburban boy finds that true bliss lies somewhere in between.

On the 50th anniversary of the premiere of the fifth 'James Bond' film in Japan, we explore spy rings in Tokyo, a secretive Sherlock Holmes society and an Australian double agent behind 007's Japanese adventure.

When I met the popular author Hiromi Kawakami in London recently, I asked her thoughts about the great authors of Japan's literary past. Did she, for example, enjoy the novels of Meiji Era (1868-1912) great Natsume Soseki? Record of a Night Too Brief, by Hiromi ...

Both influential and deeply mysterious, "The Book of the Dead" ("Shisha no Sho," 1943) is the most famous work of fiction by Shinobu Orikuchi (1887-1953), a pioneer of folklore studies in Japan and renowned poet. Orikuchi was fascinated with the origins of Japanese religion ...

The word "gate" lurks deep in the Japanese psyche. So central is the word to Japanese thinking that at least 50 kanji incorporate it.

All the homestays I have done in my life — three of them — were psychologically traumatic in uniquely torturous ways.