Books on Asia

Amy Chavez speaks with Lesley Downer, an expert on Japanese culture and history who writes both fiction and non-fiction. Her novels transport readers to the intriguing world of 19th-century Japan, while her non-fiction takes us along  the Narrow Road to the Deep North with poet Matsuo Basho; behind the scenes of the Japanese geisha community; and into the intrigues of the richest family in Japan....

Amy Chavez talks with Robert Whiting about his recently released book Gangsters, Fraudsters, Dreamers & Spies: The Outsiders Who Shaped Modern Japan (Tuttle, April, 2024).  They talk about strong women characters such as an Australian bar hostess named Maggie who became famous for using scissors to cut off customers' neckties  and a female yakuza gangster who carried a revolver in her purse. And i...

In this episode of the Books on Asia podcast, host Amy Chavez talks to author John Stevens about his new book The Lotus Moon: Art and Poetry of Buddhist Nun Otagaki Rengetsu  (Floating World Editions, Aug. 2023). Book's Features: The most comprehensive English-language presentation of the work of famed nun and artist Ōtagaki Rengetsu (1791-1875) • Presents 90 of Rengetsu's painting and pottery wor...

Author and travel-writer Angus Waycott talks about his  8-day walk around Sado Island off Niigata Prefecture in the Japan Sea. He gives us in-depth accounts of: a mujina (tanuki-worshipping) cult, funa-ema (literally "ship horse pictures"), exile (including those of Zeami and Buddhist priest Nichiren), and the controversy behind the Kinzan gold mine and its "slave labor," all topics that he record...

We talk with publisher Peter Goodman and author/translator Frederik L. Schodt about artificial intelligence as it relates to writing and publishing books. Frederik L. Schodt 's book The Astro Boy Essays: Osamu Tezuka, Mighty Atom, and the Manga/Anime Revolution was recently listed as one of the books used to train generative AI. Peter Goodman is publisher of Stone Bridge Press (our podcast sponsor...

In this episode of the Books on Asia podcast, host Amy Chavez talks with author and translator Frederik L. Schodt, who has written/translated many books on Japan including The Osamu Tezuka Story , Manga, Manga!: The The World of Japanese Comics , The Astro Boy Essays , and My Heart Sutra: The World in 260 Characters (read our review ). But the two books we're going to talk about today are his hist...

In this episode of the BOA podcast, host Amy Chavez talks with John Ross, a New Zealand writer based in Taiwan. Ross has spent three decades in Asia, starting as a freelance photojournalist then becoming an English teacher and author. His works include Formosan Odyssey: Taiwan, Past and Present , You Don’t Know China: Twenty-Two Enduring Myths Debunked , and Taiwan in 100 Books. He co-founded  Cam...

In 2021 John Rucynski--who has been living in Japan on and off since 1994--self-published A Passion for Japan through Blue Sky Publishing. In this anthology, which includes 31 writers, he asks not why the writers came to Japan but why they stayed. Here is a list of the essays and writers included, from the Table of Contents Shodō: Finding My Way in The Way of Writing Karen Hill Anton One Year wit...

Stephen Mansfield, author of  Tokyo: A Biography (Tuttle, 2017), is a British writer and photo-journalist based in Japan. His photo-journalism work has appeared in over 60 magazines, newspapers, and journals worldwide including the Kyoto Journal, CNN Travel and Nikkei Asia . To date, he has had twenty books published, four of them on the culture and people of Laos and several on Japanese gardens....

In this episode of the Books on Asia Podcast, host Amy Chavez sits down with writer, translator, and professor of Japanese at Western Michigan University, Jeffrey Angles. He is the first non-native poet writing in Japanese to win the Yomiuri Prize for Literature, a highly coveted prize for poetry. His translation of the modernist classic The Book of the Dead by Shinobu Orikuchi won both the Miyosh...

Sarah Coomber is the author of The Same Moon (Camphor Press, 2020), a memoir about what happened when she traded out her wrecked Minnesota life for two years in rural Japan. The Same Moon is possibly the only book about the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program (JET) experience written from a woman's point of view. Sarah joined the program in 1996, when the government-sponsored program was in its in...

In this episode of the BOA podcast, host Amy Chavez talks with Azby Brown, a long-time resident of Japan and author of Just Enough: Lessons from Japan for Sustainable Living, Architecture, and Design . Some topics discussed are Edo Period sustainability measures, STG’s, architecture of old Japanese houses, the Kamikatsu Zero Waste town, and future measures Japan is taking to become more sustainabl...

In this episode of the BOA podcast, host Amy Chavez talks with Maud Rowell about her new book Blind Spot: Exploring and Educating on Blindness (404 Ink, 2021). Maud is a freelance journalist and writer from London. She went blind at 19 while traveling in South Korea. Two months later, she went on to begin a four-year degree in Japanese Studies at University of Cambridge including one year at Doshi...

In this episode of the Books on Asia podcast, podcast host and island-dweller Amy Chavez and Gifu countryside villager Iain Maloney discuss their experiences living in Japan's countryside. Iain's book The Only Gaijin in the Village: A Year Living in Rural Japan is dedicated to the subject of himself moving to the the countryside with his Japanese wife, while Amy in her latest book The Widow, the P...

Podcast host Amy Chavez talks to Robert Weis, curator of the Luxembourg Natural History Museum's upcoming exhibit, “Spirit of Shizen – The Nature of Japan through 72 Seasons,” running from July 1 to August 31, 2022.  An accompanying catalogue, in the form of an anthology, will be published featuring essays by prominent writers on Japan's seasons. Amy starts off the show asking  Weis, a paleontolog...

Amy asks Poulton to explain the difference between reading Noh plays and seeing a Noh performance. Poulton goes into great detail on the subject, including why and how the same Noh play covered in a few pages of text becomes a one-and-a-half hour play when performed. He quotes from Arthur Waley's The Noh Plays of Japan to explain the concept of length and time. He further introduces Kan'ami and Ze...

This week author and translator John Stevens joins us from Hawaii. Stevens has penned many books over his long career, mainly dealing with Japanese martial arts, poetry, and biography. “ A book should be enlightening for the writer, and for the people reading it. ” —John Stevens Amy starts off the show mentioning the books of Stevens that she has read: The Marathon Monks of Mt. Hiei ; The Essence...

Abby Denson is the award-winning author of Cool Japan Guide: Fun in the Land of Manga, Lucky Cats and Ramen , Cool Tokyo Guide: Adventures in the City of Kawaii Fashion, Train Sushi and Godzilla and the Kitty Sweet Tooth series (with Utomaru).  Her most recent book, which we’re going to talk about today, is Uniquely Japan: A Comic Book Artist Shares Her Personal Faves - Discover What Makes Japan T...

In this episode of the Books on Asia Podcast, sponsored by Stone Bridge Press, podcast host Amy Chavez talks with novelist David Joiner about his new novel that takes place in Kanazawa, in Japan’s Ishikawa Prefecture. The novel introduces the city of Kanazawa, its connection to the famous Japanese literary master Izumi Kyōka, and its setting for the novel. The story revolves around an American mar...

In this episode of the Books on Asia Podcast, sponsored by Stone Bridge Press, host Amy Chavez talks with anthropologist, shamisen player, author, and translator Liza Dalby about her books and her new translation of the recently deceased novelist cum Buddhist nun Jakuchō Setouchi's memoir "Places." Liza is author of the Geisha , Kimono: Fashioning Culture , East Wind Melts the Ice: A Guide to Sere...

In this episode of the Books on Asia Podcast, sponsored by Stone Bridge Press , podcast host Amy Chavez talks with Kathleen Burkinshaw in the U.S. about her book The Last Cherry Blossom , and about hibakusha , the Japanese word that refers to victims of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki that ended WWII. "My mother was 12 and a half when the bomb was dropped. She grew up in Hiroshi...

On this episode of the Books on Asia Podcast, sponsored by Stone Bridge Press, we have guest interviewer Lisa Wilcut speaking with award-winning writer and translator Meredith McKinney. McKinney is translator of many Japanese classics such as Sei Shonagon's 11th-century "The Pillow Book" and the 14th-century "Essays in Idleness," which was published along with "Hōjōki." She has also translated "Ku...

On this episode of the Books on Asia Podcast, sponsored by  Stone Bridge Press , Alex Kerr is  returning to the show .  Alex is author of such notable books as  Lost Japan ,  Dogs and Demons ,  Finding the Heart Sutra , and  Another Kyoto . Today he talks to podcast host Amy Chavez about his latest book,  Another Bangkok,  released on July 1, 2021. He introduces Thailand's capital city via its arc...

Today on the Books on Asia Podcast, host Amy Chavez talks with the co-editors of Yamamba: In Search of the Japanese Mountain Witch , just released by Stone Bridge Press. Rebecca Copeland is a professor of Japanese literature, a writer of fiction ( The Kimono Tattoo ) and literary criticism, and a translator of Japanese literature ( Grotesque, The Goddess Chronicle ). Linda C. Ehrlich is an indepen...

Cathrine Pawasarat, author of Gion Festival: Exploring its Mysteries , is one of the founders of the Clear Sky Retreat Center in British Columbia, Canada. Her previous book is From Wasteland to Pureland: Reflections on the Path to Awakening . The former Kyoto resident talks with us today about Kyoto's most famous event, the Gion Festival that happens every July in the former capital. Amy starts ou...