For Victoria James's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
You always remember your first time. Mine was on a subway train in central London, late one September afternoon. It was 1999, shortly before I moved to Japan. My impression of the country I would soon be living in had just been thoroughly shaken up. Shunga, ...
"Seiobo There Below," a not-quite novel by Hungary's star postmodern author László Krasznahorkai, is a delight, a puzzle, a frustration and a joy.
If you’ve ever thought book reviewing was a questionable business — so opinionated! so subjective! — this may be the review to prove you right.
The first time most people outside Japan heard about the country's northern Tohoku region was when it was struck by a devastating earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011, leaving more than 15,000 dead and a million buildings damaged or destroyed. But to those ...
It looks like a classic coffee-table book, a hefty hardback of more than 500 pages and almost as many color illustrations — but be careful who you ask round for coffee if you're displaying the latest volume from the British Museum. That's because it's ...
The British Museum's press officer, Claire Coveney, comes hurrying up to take me to the galleries of the museum's latest hot-ticket show, "Shunga: Sex and pleasure in Japanese Art," and I'm not surprised she looks run off her feet. Pre-opening interest in this new ...
"It's come pretty much out of nowhere," says British Museum curator Tim Clark, placing a small wooden box on the table — it's about the dimensions of a shoebox, slightly weathered and lightly inscribed with fluid kanji characters. "It was in Japan until last ...
If you're considering trekking Mount Fuji this year, look sharp — just four weeks remain of the official open season. But if you're making last-minute plans for an ascent of those conical 3,776 meters, think carefully about what you're taking on. Unless, that is, ...
British writer, historian and journalist Lesley Downer has been visiting Japan and writing about it for nearly 35 years — beginning in 1978, when she was part of the first-ever intake of the English Teaching Recruitment Program, which evolved into the famous JET (Japan ...
Lesley Downer's seven books range widely in genre and subject. Here she reflects on their inspiration and her experiences writing them. "On the Narrow Road to the Deep North: Journey into a Lost Japan" (1989): Downer's first book, a travelogue, recounts a journey she made ...
