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Sunday, September 10, 2006

INSIDE

This is a beautiful book, published by Kodansha, entitled Inside and other short fiction: Japanese women by Japanese women. It's edited by Cathy Layne, whose focus was on selecting work by prize-winning popular Japanese women novelists who have never been published in English before. The book design and the cover art, by Tomoko Sawada, is subtle and stunning. So it's a ground-breaking collection, and it's an eye-opening collection, and it was an honor to be asked to write the foreword for it.

Here's a good review from the L.A. Times. There's one thing in the review I take objection to, however. The reviewer, Janice P. Nimura, quotes a comment I made in the foreword that "the image of women in modern Japan now seems poised to evolve into something altogether new," and then she goes on to question my observation, saying that it "may be trite - we aren't really still imagining that all Japanese women are geishas at heart, are we?"

Aren't we? I wonder. I think Janice is overly optimistic. I predict that "Memoirs of a Geisha" will continue to grossly outsell "Inside and other short fiction," and I doubt that any of these stories will be made into big budget Hollywood movies. Sadly, it seems we in the west will always prefer Japanese women by western men.

Please buy this book, and prove me wrong.

posted at 9/10/2006 10:43:00 AM [::]

 

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As will be gathered
from these notes of mine,
I am the sort of person
who approves
of what others abhor
and detests
the things they like.

—Sei Shonagon, The Pillow Book
circa 1000 AD

Clearly,
if Sei Shonagon had had access
to the Internet,
she would have had a weblog
instead of a Pillowbook.

—Ruth Ozeki, Weblog
circa 2000 AD

 

 





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—Ruth Ozeki, All Over Creation

"A feast for mind and heart."
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