Sadako Sawamura was one of Japan's leading character actresses. Though she often performed on stage, she is best remembered for her movie roles -- Naruse's 1954 "Late Chrysanthemums," Ozu's 1960 "Late Autumn." Plain yet cultivated, she specialized in traditional roles -- the older geisha, the worldly aunt, the "okamisan" at the elegant eatery.
Later in life (she died in 1996 at the age of 87), she developed another talent: She became an author. Her first autobiographical work, "The Song of a Shell," was published in 1969 and her second, this book of recollections of Asakusa, won the 1977 Japan Essayist's Club Prize.
Writing was for her spontaneous. "It is amazing how many things I still remember," she once wrote. "It is as though they had been biding their time, heaped one on top of another, holding their breath at the bottom of my mind." When she sat down to write her weekly reminiscence (these short essays were originally serialized in the Kurashi no Techo), the downtown of long ago, the Asakusa of the Taisho period (1912-1926) came to life again.