by Jean Pasley The year is 1890. Western influences are flooding into Japan. A nomadic Irishman arrives to record this unique culture before it vanishes. In this richly imagined novel, late nineteenth century Japan is brought vividly to life. Based on the remarkable experiences of the Irish writer, Lafcadio Hearn, and drawing on his letters, essays and books, Jean Pasley…
by Roger Pulvers Originally published in Japanese under the title If There Were No Japan: A Cultural Memoir, this book was acclaimed for its insights into Japanese life, bringing together aspects of history, culture and everyday life to paint an original and revealing portrait of the Japanese people and the pressing issues facing them today. During his decades of passionate…
by Clara Sue Kidwell Every culture has some system of knowledge to explain its place in the world. Some of these systems are more complex than others, but each has an internal consistency based on what people have experienced. Some cultures have been characterized as “savage,” or “primitive” and have been considered as inferior by other cultures. Some cultures…
—A Memoir of Life in the United States, Europe, Japan and Australia by Roger Pulvers “Roger has fearlessly thrown himself into the whirlpool of cross-culturalism. His life reads like an adventure story.”—Ryuichi Sakamoto The Unmaking of an American is an engaging and entertaining cross-cultural memoir spanning decades of dramatic history on four continents. Author, playwright, translator, journalist, theater and film…
by Xu Xiaobin With her delightfully evocative prose, Xu Xiaobin presents us with a collection of stories crawling with fraught power dynamics, strange events, and unsettling images. Not only does she write about women, but the worlds around them, the fears that dog them, and the histories that haunt them. Xu’s entangled plots sneak up on the reader and make…
by Rob Janoff How do you brand a revolution? In his engaging new book, Taking a Bite out of the Apple: A Graphic Designer’s Tale, Rob Janoff – designer of the world-famous Apple logo – shares what it was like to live through the heady days of the home computer revolution. From his fateful meeting with Steve Jobs in Silicon Valley…
by Anupa Roy A climate crisis in the Ice Age. A cold snap leads to an unrelenting glacial. For our prehistoric ancestors survival is threatened. Food gets harder to find in the frigid lands of Central Asia. Yet the tribes living near the Altai Mountains have found a refuge. A river and a lake allows some plants and trees…
by Ruth Finnegan FBA It is a common notion that Africa has, and indeed ought to have, learned much from the west. This is not wrong; all cultures rightly learn from each other. But less is said of what there is to learn from Africa: from her stories, myths, music, proverbs, insights - and more. Here an acclaimed African scholar steps…
Histoire par Ruth Finnegan Illustrations par Rachel Backshall Kris et Kate construisent un bateau dans le sable et leur chien Holly gambade autour d’eux. Ils s’aventurent dans une crique, sous le regard de leur mère restée sur le rivage. Un doux conte magique admirablement illustré qui incite à la découverte de l’histoire naturelle. Traduit de l’anglais par Gwendolyne Thio et…
by Xu Xiaobin Translated from the Chinese by John Howard-Gibbon, Natascha Bruce, Nicky Harman and Alvin Leung ISBN: 978-1-911221-19-7 Publication date: 25 March 2019 Format: Paperback (Demy octavo) 216mm x 138mm Pages: 120 pp Cover illustration by Xu Xiaobin
by Randy Taguchi Riku Sato is in the fifth grade, when he moves from Utsunomiya to Fukushima to switch schools. Minamisoma, the town he arrives in, is virtually deserted--after the devastating earthquake and tsunami disaster of March 11, 2011, which struck the Tohoku region in Japan and triggered a nuclear meltdown, not a single soul is in sight; not in…
by Chang Ying-Tai WINNER OF THE 2015 LENNOX ROBINSON LITERARY AWARD Selected by BookTrust for the "Books we like: June 2015" (age 12+). A reclusive young boy stumbles upon his father’s diary. Filled with drawings, photos and anecdotes, the diary reveals an alpine world that his father once inhabited as a child: where tribes were fashioned by tree spirits; animals could be spoken to;…
