Kyoto Journal 100th Issue Published Review by Rebecca Otowa Sept. 24, 2021 This month, throughout Japan and the world of people who love Japan, a great sigh of relief and satisfaction could be felt. The 100th issue of the prestigious Kyoto Journal was published. Since it first saw the light in 1987, this quarterly publication …Read More
Category: Book Reviews (Page 3 of 4)
Book review by Jann Williams of Black Dragonfly by Jean Pasley (Balestier Press, 2021) Black Dragonfly is a book of rich imagination, inspired by and incorporating the work of Patrick Lafcadio Hearn (1850 – 1904). Hearn, of Greek-Irish heritage, spent the last 14 years of his life in Japan, recording aspects of Japanese life that …Read More
Reading Inaka: Portraits of Life in Rural Japanby Chad Kohalyk In a small city in western Canada — which one might call inaka by dint of the high ratio of giant pickup trucks and the 95% white demographics — a group of immigrant moms from Japan, most married to Canadians, decided to band together. Their …Read More
Japanese Wood and Carpentry – Rustic and Refined – By Mechtild Mertz A book review by Judith Clancy___________________________ Japan is a country whose primary building material is wood, ranging from delicate alcove posts to some of the largest wooden structures in the world all employing exquisitely selected wood species. Walking the old streets of Kyoto …Read More
by Chad Kohalyk A physical space for your inner self — reading a new translation of Hōjōki by Matthew Stavros My clearest memory of my grandfather is the little cot in his back room. Lying on his side, propped up on one elbow, he would spend hours on that folding metal bed with the thin …Read More
Review by Preston Keido Houser Kerr, Alex. Finding the Heart Sutra: Guided by a Magician, an Art Collector and Buddhist Sages from Tibet to Japan. Dublin: Allen Lane, 2020. 297pp. Ebook and paperback. I’ve been exposed to the Heart Sutra for several decades now (I hesitate to use the word study since the sutra seems …Read More
Book review by John Dougill There’s often a mystery about why some books last and others fade from public awareness. That certainly applies in this case, because for some reason this reviewer fails to understand, A Zen Romance fails to come up in talk of best novels about Japan. Shamefully it was not even included …Read More
Cipangu, Golden Cipangu: Essays in Japanese History by Michael HoffmanVirtualbookworm.com Publishing, 2020, pp.298 Book Review by John Dougill Michael Hoffman’s literary and historical articles for The Japan Times have always come across as remarkably well-informed, remarkably well written too. It led me to read his first collection of miscellaneous pieces called In the Land of …Read More
Japanese Wood and Carpentry, Rustic and RefinedBy Mechtild Mertz(reviewed by Judith Clancy) Japan is a country whose primary building material is wood. Walking the old streets of Kyoto or entering a temple reveals the legacy of Japan’s forests: the soothing calm symmetry of wood lattice-fronted homes; and temples with lustrous pillars treated with …Read More
The Mad Kyoto Shoe Swapper And Other Short StoriesRebecca Otowa160pp A Personal Response by Ian ‘Josh’ Yates Though I have read a lot recently, I have written very little. I could blame any number of things, from the noise of my children to the gloom that doesn’t seem to disappear even when the clouds dissipate. …Read More
Kyoto Writing Competition
WiK Anthologies
The Nature of Kyoto (2023)
Eds. Lisa Twaronite Sone & Robert Weis
Foreword by Pico Iyer
Structures of Kyoto (2021)
Eds: Rebecca Otowa & Karen Lee Tawarayama
Foreword by Judith Clancy
Encounters with Kyoto (2019)
Eds: Jann Williams & Ian Josh Yates
Foreword by Juliet Winters Carpenter
Echoes (2017)
Eds: John Dougill, Amy Chavez, & Mark Richardson
Preface by Alex Kerr
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