The National Gallery of Canada showcases Showa Era (1926-89) photographers, whose documentation and interpretation of politics, culture, social issues and even the quotidian changed the face of modern photography in Japan.

Utamaro is justly remembered as one of the greatest ukiyo-e print designers of the 18th century. The Folio Society's reproduction of his "Studies from Nature" reminds us why.

"Peak Japan" provides a painstaking overview of the country's social, economic and political trajectory since the 1990s.

Toyoko Yamasaki's "The Barren Zone" is a chilling portrayal of the harsh realities of being a POW and the social difficulties faced by survivors upon returning to Japan.

Years of extensive research and interviews make Anna Fifield's biography of Kim Jong Un and others in the Kim dynasty a must-read for those striving to understand North Korea's enigmatic comrade-in-chief.

The Washington Post Beijing bureau chief Anna Fifield's new book, "The Great Successor," details the life of North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un.

As a fulcrum of exchange, the Ryukyu archipelago was multilingual and multicultural from its earliest days.

Ohara Koson created a large body of ukiyo-e prints that delighted a foreign clientelle, yet garnered relatively little attention in Japan. More than 70 years after his death, he is finally being honored with a retrospective in his native country.

Utagawa Kuniyoshi was a true son of Edo. Born near Nihonbashi in 1797, his father a dyer, he grew up among the hoi polloi in the crowded streets of the low city, where popular stories of tattooed otokodate, the revered "street knights" of the ...

Natsume Soseki, widely viewed as Japan's greatest literary figure, was a complicated man. A new full-length biography by John Nathan, "Soseki: Modern Japan's Greatest Novelist," sheds light on the challenging, and often painful, life of this literary giant.