July in Kyoto means the Gion Festival, the city’s premier event which stretches over the whole month and provides tourists with an array of glittering photo-ops. The piece below is an excerpt from “Kyoto Souvenir,” a book by Fernando Torres still in the preliminary stages which tells of buying a forsaken house in Higashiyama. (He describes …Read More
Category: On Kyoto (Page 10 of 11)
Writings about Kyoto, whether by Japanese or foreign observers
Those familiar with the rich heritage of artwork in Japan will be aware of numerous stories about painted figures which are so life-like that they come alive and step out of their frames, like the characters in Woody Allen’s The Purple Rose of Cairo. The Kyoto painter Okyo Murayama for instance painted a ghost that …Read More
It’s on the outskirts of Kyoto. It’s in spacious woodland. It dates back to the eighth century and pre-Heian times. It’s little-known, but once it was counted amongst the top 22 shrines of Japan. Oharano Shrine is closely associated with the powerful Fujiwara clan. It was set up by the dominant family at the time …Read More
This year’s winning entry was by Terin Jackson, an American living in Kyoto who writes a blog for his private tour company. The competition took him out of his comfort zone, forcing him to cut down on his natural verbosity in order to keep within the word limit. ‘The process of whittling it all down …Read More
The following extract is taken from a longer biographical piece of Harold Stewart (1916-95) for the revolvy website. Click here to see the full piece. *********** [Hal Stewart] visited Japan in 1961 and then again in 1963 to be ordained as a Jōdo Shinshū priest only to withdraw at the last minute. It was rumoured …Read More
As is well-known, Lafcadio Hearn was preoccupied with ghosts, and his taste for the macabre found its supreme expression in the collection of stories in Kwaidan (1903). His belief in ghosts started out as a childhood obsession, when he would be plagued at night by visions and nightmares. Such was his screaming that his great …Read More
Our attention has been drawn to a useful resource in Japanese of poetry about Kyoto. It’s part of an extensive website called Japan Note, covering various aspects of history and culture as can be seen on its home page. For 20 waka poems in Japanese about Kyoto, click here. For 30 different tanka in Japanese …Read More
The deadline for this year’s WiK Short Shorts Competition will be on March 1, and just a reminder that this year we are offering a top prize of ¥30,000 plus several other smaller prizes. The top three winners will be included in the next Writers in Kyoto Anthology, and details about how to purchase a …Read More
‘Common Sense’ By Lafcadio Hearn (a short story set in Kyoto and contained in Kotto, 1902) by Andrew Sokulski Zozaya (WiK intern) Kyoto is a city with abundant temples and rich in Buddhist history, so it is not surprising that a tale about a priest would be set there. ‘Common Sense’ by Lafcadio Hearn is …Read More
The Ladies’ Temple in Saga By Jeff Robbins (Thanks to Sydney Solis for providing feedback on this.) In October, just before I left my home in Fukuoka to go to Kyoto, I discovered a Basho renku about the Nonomiya Shrine in Saga, west of Kyoto, and made time in my schedule to explore the verse …Read More
WiK 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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