Alongside great artists are those who witness their triumphs and setbacks, recording behind-the-scenes episodes that illuminate the processes of art.
Teruyo Nogami is one of those, although her contribution to Japanese cultural life is not limited to being an amanuensis to the great. Nogami is also a fine novelist in her own right, and an astute observer of the Showa Era (1926-1989) that she lived through.
Last December, Bungei Shunju published her memoirs, titled "Tokage no Shippo (The Tail of the Lizard)." That was less than four years after the publication of her other volume of reminiscences, "Tenkimachi," superbly translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter in the Stone Bridge Press edition titled "Waiting on the Weather." The current volume is made up of interviews, and as such is an oral history of the people Nogami worked with and with whom she shared her life.