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.

In "Lost Japan," Rosella Menegazzo brings talented daguerreotype photographer Felice Beato and his previously overlooked photos of daily life in Meiji Era Japan into the foreground.

The space was bare. Except for a dirty mattress, there was no furniture. Bugs were crawling on the walls, the chamber pot reeked. Unshaved, unwashed and alone, Jack Riley had only a few benzedrine pills left to feed his addiction. Soon, he would be ...

When Masatoshi Naito first began researching Tohoku folklore, he expected to find places "haunted with a macabre atmosphere." Instead, he stumbled into a vivacious traditional society "filled with elderly women who throw boisterous bashes all night long."

The "Konjaku Monogatari" is one of Japan's oldest collection of stories. Many are supernatural folktales that warn against foxes and demons. All are meant to educate.

Landing in the Japanese capital in 1975 was a bit of a shock. "The crowds, the noise, the visual excess" — everything seemed over-the-top.

A few simple lines on paper — that's all it was. But there was something extremely alluring about it that intrigued Tadao Ando. Then barely out of his teens, Ando might not have fully understood what he was looking at: a sketch of the chapel ...

How a short but fruitful relationship with Natsume Soseki led to the most productive years of Akutagawa's tragic life.

Little information remains about the personal life of the artisan Kojiro Shimizu. His personality and interests, his passions and motivations — all are shrouded in mystery. What we know is that he worked in Kyoto in the late 19th and early 20th century and ...