Before Lafcadio Hearn, there was Pierre Loti. The Frenchman is (in)famous in Japan for his 1887 novel, Madame Chrysantheme, which influenced the short story Madame Butterfly (1898) by John Luther Long. In collaboration with David Belasco, Long turned the story into a play, which in turn inspired Puccini to write his opera of the same …Read More
Category: On Kyoto (Page 8 of 11)
Writings about Kyoto, whether by Japanese or foreign observers
(The following article first appeared in Echoes: Writers in Kyoto Anthology 2017) Three Old Men of Kyotoby Alex Kerr Harold StewartDavid KiddWilliam Gilkey I don’t know if young men are like this any more, but I was the sort of young man who sat at the feet of old men. I hung on their every …Read More
Truman Capote on Kyoto, The New Yorker, November 2, 1957. The extract is taken from a lengthy interview with Marlon Brando in The Miyako Hotel during the filming of Sayonara. https://www.newyorker.com/…/11/09/the-duke-in-his-domain *********************“Below the windows, the hotel garden, with its ultra-simple and soigné arrangements of rock and tree, floated in the mists that crawl off Kyoto’s waterways—for it is a watery …Read More
John Dougill writes… Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904) was a most remarkable writer, at home in a range of genres. While a journalist in the US, he wrote sensational crime stories and lurid accounts of the grotesque, ranging from macabre incidents to graphic descriptions of a slaughterhouse. Later in Japan he showed himself to be adept as …Read More
Western Writers in/on Kyoto[A highly subjective and selective account…]By Ken Rodgers The first Europeans to set foot in Kyoto, in 1551, were the missionaries Francis Xavier and Juan Fernandez, seeking selfies with the Emperor Go-Nara, during the later throes of the Sengoku period of warring states. Not a good time in the old capital. Xavier …Read More
The Last Snow in Kyotoby Marianne Kimura I wrote this hoping that the last big snow in Kyoto (January 26, 2019) will NOT after all be the last snow ever in Kyoto. (It is so far, one year and four days later, but who is counting?) ****************** Over several years, the snow had undoubtedly become …Read More
The Old Man on the Hillby Richard Holmes I could see him through the pillars that looked down over the charred remains. Smoke rose up languidly from debris scattered everywhere, interrupted by the occasional flame that would shoot out unexpectedly. He stood there in his pajamas and hospital slippers, staring vacantly through gaunt, sunken eyes …Read More
A small group of us met at Keage Station and began the walk up to Agon-shu’s huge Hoshi Matsuri event in the hills above Kiyomizu-dera. I’d been wanting to go for years, but always seemed to hear about it afterward, usually in that half-page ad in the Japan Times that the sect shells out big …Read More
At WiK’s Words and Music bonenkai on Dec 8, long term resident Ken Rodgers delivered the following piece. One time organiser of Kyoto Connection and managing editor of Kyoto Journal, Ken has been instrumental in enriching the expatriate experience for those living in the ancient capital. _________________ The Pillowbook of Moe UzumasaGetting behind a microphone …Read More
Prompted by Nick Teele’s account of reviving a 33 temple pilgrimage, a website reader from Denmark named Esben Andreasen has submitted an account of his own 13 temple pilgrimage to Kyoto. The piece below is an edited translation of his article which originally appeared in a Danish journal. Esben’s first visit to Japan was in …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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