Current Issue
(#70: KYOTO LIVES)

Back Issues: 2004
#56

Cover: photo by Stewart Wachs

Our 56th issue features the debut of a new regular section: In Translation, which will spotlight the vital role of translators in bridging between cultures. In "They Who Render Anew," Avery Fischer goes behind the scenes to interview contemporary literary translators Juliet Winters Carpenter, Janine Beichman, Sam Hamill, Leza Lowitz & Oketani Shogo, Elaine Gerbert, and Royall Tyler, exploring their diversified approaches to introducing Japanese writers to Western readers, and comparing various translations of well-known works.

Playwright Sears Eldredge revisits the infamous WWII Thai-Burma railroad in "Return to Kanburi," finding an unexpected message of hope for the world. David Loy discovers Buddhist echoes in the world of J.R.R. Tolkien, in "Dharma of the Rings," while Jean Miyake-Downey re-evaluates the stereotype of "closed Japan" in "Dragonfly Island Pilgrimage." Several articles deal with memories: "Going Home Again" by Robert Brady, "Bamboo Shadows" by Tony Cohan, and a short story, "Since My House Burned Down," by Mary Yukari Waters, who is also interviewed by Stewart Wachs ("The Clarity of Double Vision"). Nomura Katsuko, a 92-year-old social activist, recalls her life in conversation with Kaori Mizuno. In "Foreign Imports," Roderick Overaa investigates the plight of trafficked women in Japan.

Contributing editor Marc Peter Keane introduces "Miwa-an," a contemporary teahouse built from local materials in Ithaca, NY. Tokyo artist Jim Hathaway encounters changes in his "Shitamachi" neighborhood; Sherry Nakanishi talks with Osaka artist Date Nobuaki about his literally off-the-wall "Ukeleleization" project -- tranforming demolished buildings into unique musical instruments. In "Ozu's Garden" Jay Manzo sees the classic movies of Ozu Yasujiro as "borrowed landscape." Kyoto monk Keisho meditates on "Going West from Kyoto," and William Stimson discloses the gentle art of "Opening a Durian."

Design/graphics by John Einarsen, Markuz Wernli, and Thierry Le.

Reviews:
Embracing the Firebird:  Yosano Akiko and the Birth of the Female Voice in Modern Japanese Poetry by Janine Beichman - Maggie Chula
The Breakaway Kitchen by Eric Gower - Sherry and Hiro Nakanishi
Screenplay of Ozu’s Tokyo Story - Christopher Tate
Edo, the city that became Tokyo - Jim Hathaway
Life of the Buddha by Tezuka Osamu - Thierry Le
Arranging Things: A Rhetoric of Object Placement by Leonard Koren - Markuz Wernli

Street, Just Deeds, Transience, Media in Asia, Time, Transforming Conflict, Inaka, Orthodoxy & Heresy, Word, Sacred Mountains of Asia, The Death & Resurrection of Kyoto, Radicalism of Cultural Continuity, Neighborhoods, Allure of the Exotic, Kyoto Speaks, Eros, Japan in the Year 2020

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