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These private recollections of longtime Japan resident and Japanese culture expert Donald Richie capture the personalities of the Japanese people with insight and humor. From the private musings of author Donald Richie, comes this extensive collection of brief written «portraits» which capture the personalities of 54 different Japanese people—some famous, some notorious, and some unknown. First written in 1987, Japanese Portraits presents one author's vision of Japanese culture and etiquette through precise, intimate profiles of both the ordinary and extraordinary people that make up the diverse nation. This collection of individual vignettes is perhaps the first book about the Japanese to view them entirely unhindered by the various theories about them, and about culture in Japan as a whole—depicting them as complicated, simple, inscrutable, and understandable, like anyone else, yet still unique. In these fifty-four pieces you'll meet some household names—Mishima, Kawabata, Mifune, Kurosawa—and little-known neighborhood figures: the would-be geisha, the ex-boxer turned gangster, the scheming bar madame and the old man dying alone. And there are dozens of others, individuals who have in common, besides their Japanese nationality, the fact that they knew the author, and that—fortunately for us—he knew them. These highly personal reminiscences form one of the most original and deeply felt books on culture in Japan ever to appear.

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A masterfully written collection of short essays by the recognized Western expert on Japanese culture and film and the man Time magazine calls «the dean of art critics in Japan.» Spanning more than thirty years, Richie interprets his adopted home's creative accomplishments during its rise to economic and cultural power.

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This definitive new collection of essays by the writer Time calls «the dean of arts critics in Japan» ranges from Kyogen drama to the sex shows of Shinjuku, from film and Buddhism to Butoh and retro rock 'n' roll, from wasei eigo (Japanese/English) to mizushobai, the fine art of pleasing. Spanning some fifty years, these thirty-seven essays—most never anthologized before—offer cross-sections of Japan's enormous cultural power. They reflect the unique perspective of a man attempting to understand his adopted home. The writings of Donald Richie—film critic, reviewer, novelist, and essayist—have influenced generations of Japan observers around the world.

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This provocative book is a tractate—a treatise—on beauty in Japanese art, written in the manner of a zuihitsu, a free-ranging assortment of ideas that “follow the brush” wherever it leads. Donald Richie looks at how perceptual values in Japan were drawn from raw nature and then modified by elegant expressions of class and taste. He explains aesthetic concepts like wabi, sabi, aware, and yugen, and ponders their relevance in art and cinema today.

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This historical novel is set in post-WWII Japan.The Allied Occupation of Japan was more than an amazing military operation: it also created one of the most singular civilizations of modern history. It was made up of some of America's best minds and some of its worst, of some genuine idealists and some who simply «never had it so good,» of women hungry for men, men hungry for power, and a fortunate leavening of ordinary, decent people. It was an astonishing and often terrifying little empire—now as dead as those of the Medes and Persians.All these characters—and many more—are skillfully set into the living mosaic which was the Occupation of Japan, in a dramatic story which pulls no punches. And if the reader thinks he detects himself or his friends (or enemies) among its pages, he will agree this historical novel is quite historical. But it's not often that history gets such controversial, sometimes infuriating, often hilarious, and always stimulating novel—which builds up to a final climax guaranteed to rouse the most jaded reader.

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The Temples of Kyoto takes you on a journey through these environs and presents twenty-one of these marvelous structures that are unique creations which, while quintessentially Japanese, somehow speak a universal language readily appreciated by people the world over.Donald Richie, called by Time magazine, «the dean of art critics in Japan,» turns his attention to these twenty-one temples with scholarship and an eye for the dramatic. Drawing off such classic sources as The Tale of Genji and Essays in Idleness, he takes the reader on a tour through the ages, first with a comprehensive history of Japanese Buddhism, and then by highlighting key events in the development of these «celestial-seeming cities.»Brilliant photographs of the temples, taken by the award-winning photographer Alexandre Georges, complement the text and provide a visual overview of the subject matter. His keen eye captures on film the elements that make each temple noteworthy, including their interiors, and objets d'art, in a fresh and thought provoking manner. The result is this book: a testament and meditation on the power and elegance of these world-renowned structures that are both places of worship and examples of the finest art Japan has ever produced.

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“A tour de force combining a commanding mastery of historical fact and detail, a comprehensive understanding of the human spirit, and a poetic quality of expression that transforms the hearts of all those it touches.” —The Japan Foundation NewsletterKumagai Naozane was a Japanese warrior famous for having taken the head of the young and handsome samurai Atsumori. This episode has become one of the best-known and best-loved stories in the Japanese historical classic, The Heiké Story (Heike Monogatari). This book is a fictionalized version of Kumagai’s own attempt to come to terms with his past—that real past which is his and that other past which he hears the monks inventing as they compose the text which will eventually become The Heiké Story.As the warrior remembers his past and compares it to its fictional parallel, he evokes the wonders of the city of Heiankyo (Kyoto); the wars which raised the Taira (Heike) clan to power and later reduced it to ruin at the hands of the Genji clan; the battles at the Uji River; life in the imperial court of the retired emperor Go-Shirakawa; and the celebrated final Taira battle—the naval encounter at Dannoura, where the infant emperor Antoku was delivered to the depths of the sea. Among the many pleasures of this brilliantly colored chronicle is how the common humanity of this honest, hopeless man transcends his time and milieu to speak to us, here and now.

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This photographic Tokyo travel guide explores the dynamic Japanese culture, art and architecture that make Tokyo a world-class city. It has been said that «every city has its high points, but Tokyo is all exclamation points!» The largest and most populous city in the world, Tokyo must be experienced in person to be understood truly. The next best thing? Tokyo Megacity —a visual and descriptive exploration of a city that combines old with new and traditional with trendy, like no other city in the world.This extraordinary book explores Tokyo through 250 revealing photographs by well-known photographer Ben Simmons and over 30 essays by famed author Donald Richie. Their love of the city, their sense of its history, and the deep respect and pure joy felt in being here, shine through on every page. Simmons and Richie show us how modern Tokyo evolved from a patchwork of villages that still exist today as distinct neighborhoods and districts to the modern, trendsetting metropolis renowned the world over—that combine to make Tokyo a unique and special place. Tokyo Megacity presents the districts of the city in the order that they originally developed, starting with the Imperial Palace, sliding down to the «Low City» along the Sumida River, soaring back up to the «Mid-City,» and finally, climbing the hills to the newer districts of the «High City.» The combination of Ben Simmons' photographs and Donald Richie's text capture, as never before, the tremendous diversity, vitality and sheer livability of the megacity that is Tokyo.

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