Books In English To Understand Japan

[Mulboyne]

Yomiuri: Yomiuri book among 100 recommended works
The Nippon Foundation said Tuesday it has chosen 100 books written in English--including one published by The Yomiuri Shimbun--to be presented elsewhere in the world to help people abroad correctly understand Japan. The books have been listed unanimously by a 10-member international selection committee, chaired by Takashi Shiraishi, vice president and professor of the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies. The panel also includes U.S. author Donald Richie and British Ambassador to Japan Graham Holbrook Fry, among others...The selected books include "Japan Rising: The Resurgence of Japanese Power And Purpose," authored by Kenneth Pyle (Public Affairs, 2007); "The Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature: From 1945 to the Present," by Thomas J. Rimer and Van C. Gessel (Columbia University Press); "Who Was Responsible? From Marco Polo Bridge to Pearl Harbor," published in 2006 by The Yomiuri Shimbun; and "The Conquest of Ainu Lands: Ecology and Culture in Japanese Expansion,1590-1800," by Brett L. Walker (University of California Press, 2001)...The Nippon Foundation plans to complete the catalog in March and send it to the United States in the first year of the project, reaching about 100 institutions, such as public and university libraries and think tanks, and about 500 lawmakers and other opinion leaders there...more...

This article appeared a few weeks ago but there is still no mention of it on the Foundation's English site. There is this feature in Japanese which mentions a couple of the other titles chosen so far but no complete list. Some of the books are translations such as Nakae Chomin's "Discourse By Three Drunkards On Government"

[Mulboyne]

At a different tangent, The Kyoto University of Foreign Studies has an exhibition of "50 Books that Ushered Japan into the International Era". There are quite a few foreign writers in the list including:

Francois Caron

Francois Caron (c.1600-1673) joined the Dutch East India Company, and served on one of the company's ships as a cook's assistant. In 1619 he jumped ship in Hirado, throwing himself at the mercy of the Dutch trading post there. In 1639 he was appointed director of the trading post, and although he was banished from Japan two years later on the orders of the shogunate, he continued to hold key posts in the company, and in his later years he became a director of the French East India Company.

The career path of Bernhardus Varenius (1622-c.1651) is still being followed by many of today's Japan commentators:

...Varenius never set foot in Japan, and as he notes in his preface, his work was based on that of other writers...

Laurence Oliphant

In 1858, he came to Japan as secretary to Lord Elgin, special envoy charged with concluding a friendly commercial treaty between Britain and Japan, was ennobled, and contributed to the successful concluding of the treaty. Three years later, he returned to Japan as first secretary to the British Legation but was attacked and injured by lordless samurai and returned home after a mere ten days in Japan, lucky to escape with his life.

[Charles]

I was just reading some Lafcadio Hearn books via Google Books. There are plenty of old travelogues and essays that are out of print, by authors who wrote the first English books on Japan. Special thanks are owed to Harvard, UMich and other libraries for getting into the Google scanning program.

I read Hearn's first essay, how he was urged to write his first impressions of Japan as soon as possible after arrival. I was so bored by this anecdote, I lost interest in his observations.

[pheyton]

[Mulboyne]

I see from a message posted to the NBR Forums that the list of 100 books selected by the committee has been available to peruse here since September. There are a number of surprise choices.

[kusai Jijii]

A list to "help us correctly understand" Japan. No wonder this joint is intellectually crippled.

[james]

Speaking of Hearn, there is an article about him here:
http://www.tokyoreporter.com/2008/10/04/lafcadio-hearn-the-original-japanophile/

An interesting article about his life.

the hearn museum is rather interesting to see and it's just around the corner from matsue castle, also well worth taking in. iirc, the museum charges only a small nominal amount for admission. on display are numerous of his diaries and a desk he had built to accomodate his poor eyesight.

a couple of my students have taken part in the english recital contest and the fable typically chosen is "yuki onna".

[Mulboyne]

Japan Probe has a post today on this topic with links to the individual titles.

[TennoChinko]

Hey! What about the books by that artsy fartsy writer, Alex Kerr?

Dogs & Demons ( http://www.alex-kerr.com/html/dogs___demons__english_.html )

Lost Japan ( http://www.alex-kerr.com/html/lost_japan__english_.html )



Anyways, the dry boring list isn't surprising when you realize the source. The founder of the Nippon Foundation, Ryoichi Sasakawa, is a well-known right-wing yakuza.

So, lissen up - all you fucking gaijin! Let me repeat: JAPAN IS SMALL PEACEFUL ISLAND WITH NO NATURAL RESOURCES!!! AND, I AM GODFATHER OF PEACE & LOVE!!! WHY YOU NO GIVE ME FUCKING NOBEL PEACE PRIZE???!!!

[Mulboyne]

Yomiuri: Foreign orders flood in for '100 Japan books'

The Nippon Foundation has been flooded with applications for its project to donate English-language books about this country to foreign libraries, to help people living overseas understand contemporary Japan. A nonprofit philanthropic organization founded in 1962, the foundation chose 100 books for the project. It began donations in January and as of Sept. 30, it had sent about 15,000 copies to 240 university and public libraries in Britain, Canada, Nepal, the Philippines and the United States. Encouraged by the results, the foundation has launched a new project--this time to translate 100 books written by Japanese authors into English and donate them to foreign libraries. The foundation's "100 Books for Understanding Contemporary Japan" include English-language books on such topics as Japanese politics, economics, society, culture, literature and history. The books were chosen specifically to help laypeople gain a basic understanding of Japan. The selection committee comprised 10 acknowledged experts from Japan and abroad, including Takashi Shiraishi, a visiting professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, and Japan-based U.S author Donald Richie.

Praise for the program came from Dr. Annika Culver of the University of North Carolina, a coordinator of the Asian Studies Program established at that university in September. Culver told the foundation the books would help the new program. "The collection of 100 books offers some new sources and some classics on Japanese history and culture by diverse authors. It infuses our library with new sources in Japan," Culver said. Helen Clements, associate professor of humanities and social sciences at Oklahoma State University, said: "These books will help us educate Americans, and our guests from other countries, about the rich history and culture of Japan and Japan's role in the contemporary world." According to the foundation, the most-requested book has been "Who Was Responsible? From Marco Polo Bridge to Pearl Harbor," published by The Yomiuri Shimbun. It was followed by "21st-Century Japanese Management: New Systems, Lasting Values," by James C. Abegglen and "Japan's Love-Hate Relationship with the West," by Sukehiro Hirakawa. Other popular choices have been history books and volumes about manga and anime.

The foundation said it will expand the areas to which it sends books in coming years. As it has been sending volumes primarily to libraries in North America, especially the United States, the foundation plans to send books to another 100 libraries, primarily in Europe, by the end of March. The foundation also intends to send books to 300 libraries over a one-year period beginning in April 2010, this time targeting facilities in Asia, Middle East and Oceania. One difficulty faced by the selection committee was the lack of English-language books written by Japanese authors. Although the committee tried to include as many such books as possible, ultimately only about 40 percent of the 100 books chosen were written by Japanese authors. "Foreign libraries have asked us to increase the number of books written from a Japanese perspective," said David Karashima, senior project coordinator of the foundation.

This prompted the foundation's new project of choosing 100 books by Japanese authors, which it will translate into English and donate to foreign libraries. The foundation launched two new selection committees in June. One committee will choose 50 nonfiction works, while the other committee will choose 50 pieces of fiction, all written by Japanese authors and not yet translated into English. One nonfiction committee member is Takenori Inoki, director general of the International Research Center for Japanese Studies. The fiction committee includes author Genichiro Takahashi. The nonfiction committee will choose books on such topics as cultural and social sciences, while the fiction committee will mainly choose from among novels, ranging from literary fiction to pop novels. All the books will be contemporary works, the committee said. The committees plan to choose the books within this year, and begin sending some of them to foreign libraries in 2010. "We'd also like to support Japanese authors' overseas careers through this project," Karashima said.

[Bucky]

One committee will choose 50 nonfiction works, while the other committee will choose 50 pieces of fiction, all written by Japanese authors and not yet translated into English.http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20091022TDY03103.htm

Sounds like a significant undertaking to translate 100 titles.

[Mulboyne]

Sounds like a significant undertaking to translate 100 titles.

It's no bad thing to have 100 new titles available in English but it seems a slightly arbitrary standard to compile a list based simply on what hasn't yet been translated, especially for fiction.

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

all written by Japanese authors

How the hell are people going to "correctly" understand Japan if this is the case?