Ken Rodgers, a fixture of the Kyoto literary scene, dies at 72

Ken Rodgers, longtime managing editor of Kyoto Journal, passed away on Nov. 4. He was 72 years old.

Rodgers was one of the Kyoto foreign community’s leading lights, respected for his kindness, patience and a positive outlook that inspired an eclectic range of writers, photographers and artists who contributed to the award-winning, all-volunteer magazine.

Born Kenneth Charles Wade Rodgers on May 18, 1952 on the Australian island of Tasmania, he studied printmaking and did a variety of jobs in his native country, and then South Africa, before coming to Japan. Rodgers arrived in Kyoto in August 1982, originally on a working holiday visa, and made a home and community here over the next four decades.

He worked at Kyoto Seika University’s international office until retiring in March 2022, but editing was Rodgers’ true passion. As such, he helped make Kyoto Journal, a publication focusing on Asian culture and history, one of Japan’s most prominent English-language publications following its founding in 1987.

Kaz Rodgers, also based in Kyoto, recalls his father’s dedication. “He’d be up editing way before everyone else was awake in the house. He’d rush out the door ... after a couple of bites of food and (head) to the university. At night, he was always the last one to get into the futon, up editing till late.”

Acclaimed novelist and essayist Pico Iyer, whose numerous books include “The Half Known Life” and “The Lady and the Monk,” contributed to Kyoto Journal on numerous occasions.

“Ken was, without question, the most sunlit, affirmative and constantly cheering foreign presence I met in Japan, or, really, anywhere,” Iyer says. “For 37 years, we emailed constantly. All I ever got from him were new causes for celebration and fresh possibilities for delight — in a book he'd read, an ancient place he'd just visited, the latest vegetables growing in his garden, the most recent celebration of community he'd put together in Kyoto.

“He was truly the one editor (out of hundreds I've worked with) to whom I could never say no.”

Rodgers was also known for his role as emcee of the Kyoto Connection, a monthly gathering of locally based amateur singers, musicians, poets and other creatives that was active from 1987 until 2000.

In “The Lady and the Monk,” Iyer mentions encountering a Kyoto Connection performance at a “murky little dive” populated by a “ragtag group of Bohos.” The event might feature a shakuhachi performer, a poem about environmental damage, an acapella group, a Chinese zither player and singer of traditional Canadian folk songs in one evening — all selected and introduced by Rodgers.

Author Alex Kerr, whose books include the award-winning “Lost Japan” and “Dogs and Demons,” calls Kyoto Journal the leading intellectual vehicle of Kyoto’s artists and writers.

“Ken’s deep interest in, and wide experience with, Japanese culture made him rewarding to work with,” Kerr says. “As an editor, he was fairly easygoing.”

Kerr recalls that in addition to editing, Rodgers had other talents, including as an interviewer for an online discussion of Kerr’s 2020 book “Finding the Heart Sutra.”

“The discussion took place in the depths of COVID,” Kerr recalls. “We did it with me speaking from Bangkok and Ken in Kyoto. He was an excellent interlocutor and we had a truly enjoyable, and thanks to Ken, deeply probing conversation.”

Hailing from Australia, Ken Rodgers arrived in Kyoto in 1982 on a working holiday visa. He became a fixture of the literary community over the next four decades. | John Einarsen

As managing editor, Rodgers helped Kyoto Journal produce issues on the traditional and contemporary arts of Kyoto, Japan and Asia. Essays, poems and book reviews of Asian-themed books were a regular part of the lineup, often penned by Kyoto-based writers or those with some sort of connection to the ancient capital and its Buddhist traditions.

Rodgers himself made pilgrimages to Buddhist sites in not only Japan, but China, India and Burma throughout his lifetime. “Ken's philosophy of life was deeply shaped by Buddhist philosophy,” says John Einarsen, founding editor and publisher of the magazine. “He took great pleasure in ... seeing how the representation of Buddhism in art and sculpture was different in each country. He definitely brought a Buddhist perspective to the journal.”

Rodgers also went out of his way to welcome all manner of contributors, especially younger ones with little experience in writing for a magazine. His gift as editor, Einarsen says, was his willingness to find the “article within the article.”

“Ken was talented at bringing out the essence of what a writer was attempting to convey,” Einarsen adds. “He was always supportive and respectful of the writer and often took on articles that weren't written very well if he saw something of value in them.”

This nurturing disposition sometimes led to challenging situations, according to Susan Pavloska, senior editor of Kyoto Journal.

“From the start, Ken exhorted me to respect each contributor's voice,” she says. “Quite a few of our contributors are not native speakers — the trick is to edit just enough to not lose the reader’s respect, but not too much as to polish away the piece’s specialness.”

She adds that Rodgers also possessed the delicate diplomatic skills all editors need when turning down a contributor’s idea, which he did in often long, polite emails.

“I always said Ken wrote the best rejection letters,” Pavloska says.

His editing skills were not limited to the journal. Aileen Mioko Smith, a Kyoto-based antinuclear activist and executive director of Green Action Japan, often turned to Rodgers, who was supportive of citizen-led campaigns to end nuclear power.

“My late-night emails for editing requests without any previous notice, asking him to get back to us the next day, would be answered by mid-morning with edits, tweaks and adjustments that were nonintrusive, yet cleaned up the text so well it made our communication better by leaps and bounds,” Smith says. “He didn't insert his ego. He simply facilitated.”

Rodgers was also a key member of Writers in Kyoto, founded in 2014, a collective that now boasts 70 members in the city and around the globe. Rodgers advised founding member John Dougill, and contributed to the group’s anthologies.

His love of nature and Buddhist sensibilities infused his writings, says Karen Lee Tawarayama, organizer of the WiK Kyoto Writing Competition and coeditor of “Structures of Kyoto,” the group's fourth anthology.

“Whether it was his observations of nature, the sharing of his experiences or his questions and contemplations on the nature of existence and impermanence, Ken’s words were his great gifts,” Tawarayama says.

Rodgers is survived by his wife Yuri, his son Kaz, daughter-in-law Mana and grandson Gen.

“Ken was all about real things, essential things. He wasn't at all impressed by trendiness, had no time for pretension and was very humble,” says Einarsen, adding that in one of Rodgers’ books, he shared the following words from the Buddhist anthology “The Dhammapada,” which sums up his philosophical views of life, and perhaps of editing: Those who know / the essential to be essential / and the unessential to be unessential, / dwelling in right thoughts, / do arrive at the essential.