Damian Flanagan - Author and Critic

Articles

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	\| ARTICLES AND PRESS \|

	To contact Damian flanagan please use this email address: info@damianflanagan.com


	The Sunday Times
		Beautiful homes rot away under the town hall's nose By Damian Flanagan When Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt appeared at the Conservative leadership hustings in Manchester in June they were asked about their favourite place in northwest England. As both men delivered the same response, the city’s Midland Hotel, the question arose whether either had ventured out of the “safe zone” into the wilds of Manchester. With the Conservatives back for their party conference this week they might be shocked by the derelection of our national heritage on their doorstep. (2019/9/29)

	The Times Literary Supplement
		Big in Japan By Damian Flanagan In October 1959, Masaichi Nagata, the chairman of Daiei Studios in Tokyo, was faced with a tricky situation. He had agreed to make a film of a novel called Kyoko’s House – the latest, much-anticipated publication from the wildly popular young novelist Yukio Mishima. Only then he discovered that Mishima’s book, which had been published the previous month, was taking a critical hammering.… (2019/7/26)

	The Mainichi
		Edging Toward Japan: Sun lovers D.H. Lawrence, Yukio Mishima also knew darkness By Damian Flanagan Closing my eyes on a terrace bathed in sunlight and pointed to… (2020/1/21)

	The Japan Times
		An invisible baseball curves through Japanese literature By Damian Flanagan There's a long history of pivotal baseball anecdotes in Japanese literature, with well-known writers such as Yukio Mishima and Haruki Murakami incorporating their love of the game into their work. Jan 2, 2020

	The Times Literary Supplement (podcast)
		Freedom, Books, Flowers and the Moon (TLS podcast) A weekly culture and ideas podcast by the Times Literary Supplement. The podcast ranges from who owns the countryside to Anime to Yukio Mishima. Damian Flanagan contributes to the latter subject. His section starts at 32:40. (2019/07/25)

	The Mainichi
		Edging Toward Japan: Natsume Soseki's creativity confirmed by Mountains of the Mind By Damian Flanagan The other day I visited the Natsume Soseki Memorial Museum in … (2019/12/29)

	The Times Literary Supplement
		Nightmare touches: Spine-chilling tales from a Westener in Japan By Damian Flanagan In the penultimate James Bond novel, You Only Live Twice (1964), just before 007 slays his nemesis Blofeld in a “Castle of Death” in Japan, the criminal mastermind explains to Bond the term “kirisute gomen”: the samurai right to peremptorily lop off the heads of lower orders for perceived insults. Bond hisses, “Spare me the Lafcadio Hearn, Blofeld”.... (2019/12/21)

	The Mainichi
		Edging Toward Japan: A Straight Line leads from Dicken's London to Murakami's Tokyo By Damian Flanagan The enormously popular Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami this … (2019/12/21)

	The Mainichi
		Edging Toward Japan: Heading south into Osaka's maze of delights By Damian Flanagan "Minami ni ikanai ka?" ("Do you want to head south?") 'm sitti… (2019/11/20)

	The Japan Times
		Nov 18, 2019 It's time for Japanese universities to emerge as global brands Overseas students are looking for a school with personality and some operational tweaks should help.

	The Irish Times
		Best kind of property development helps communities too November 8, 2019, 06:00 (...) harmony around it. Damian Flanagan is a property developer, writer and critic. @DamianFlanagan (...)

	The Japan Times
		Nov 16, 2019 'Forty-Seven Samurai': A paradoxical account of bloody revenge and haiku poetry The saga of the 47 ronin has inspired artists and imaginations for centuries. Now, this book by Hiroaki Sato seeks to shed new light on the origins of the conflict.

	The Mainichi
		Edging Toward Japan: How Japanese calligraphy connects to the great art of the world By Damian Flanagan I used to think of calligraphy (shodo) as something like the t… (2019/10/24)

	The Mainichi
		Edging Toward Japan: The Japanese town where a Union Jack flutters eternally By Damian Flanagan Along the riverbanks of a fairly nondescript town in the far n… (2019/10/8)

	The Mainichi
		Edging Toward Japan: What horse-riding meant to Yukio Mishima By Damian Flanagan I've been fascinated to stumble across various photos of Yukio… (2019/10/1)

	The Japan Times
		Nov 9, 2019 'The Sweetest Fruits': The influential women in Lafcadio Hearn's life The extraordinary story of Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904) is here skillfully brought to life in a sumptuous historical novel told from the perspectives of the most important women in his memorable life. The Sweetest Fruits, by Monique Truong.304 pages PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE, Historical fiction. We begin on the ...

	The Mainichi
		Edging Toward Japan: One of Japan's greatest literary forms is on the front page By Damian Flanagan You often hear of people from abroad becoming interested in un… (2019/9/18)

	The Irish Times
		Building a dream of a self-contained community with a distinct identity September 13, 2019 (...) attempting to bring the warmth and sense of tradition back into modern living. Damian Flanagan is a property(...)

	The Mainichi
		Edging Toward Japan: East Asians were once flummoxed by chopsticks By Damian Flanagan Chopsticks are so closely associated with the cultures of East… (2019/8/20)

	The Japan Times
		Oct 20, 2019 Linguistic ignorance can be bliss When it was revealed that Pico Iyer knew only a "smattering" of Japanese despite living in Japan for 25 years, some were critical. However, could there be artistic benefits to not being fluent?

	The Mainichi
		Edging Toward Japan: Provincial cities' dispatch of unique culture to the world By Damian Flanagan When I was in Sendai recently, I was reminded of various liter… (2019/7/31)

	The Japan Times
		Oct 12, 2019 'Politics, Porn and Protest': The beguiling world of experimental Japanese film Isolde Standish's "Politics, Porn and Protest" takes readers on a tour of landmark Japanese avant-garde films, including those by legendary directors Nagisa Oshima and Shohei Imamura.

	The Irish Times
		Do high fences really make the best neighbours? July 19, 2019 I recently attended a property lunch with a talk given by an award-winning developer, who is currently building thousands of affordable homes for low (...)

	The Japan Times
		Oct 5, 2019 'Japanese Ghost Stories': The ghostly ascent of Lafcadio Hearn's tales of the supernatural Japanologist Lafcadio Hearn has languished in relative obscurity outside of Japan. But with the recent publication of several books about his life and works, there are signs this is beginning to change.

	The Mainichi
		Edging Toward Japan: Turning things invisible and perceiving other ways of seein g By Damian Flanagan I recently received from author Motonori Sato -- a professor a… (2019/7/17)

	The Japan Times
		Sep 7, 2019 'Mishima, Aesthetic Terrorist': The brain behind the coup In "Mishima, Aesthetic Terrorist," Andrew Rankin takes us to the less-visited corners of Mishima's complete works, the intellectual essays that were the fount for the ideas that played themselves out in his novels.

	The Mainichi
		Edging Toward Japan: The '50s Voodoo fascination of James Bond and Yukio Mishima By Damian Flanagan In the second James Bond novel, "Live and Let Die"(1954), Ian … (2019/7/9)

	The Japan Times
		Sep 1, 2019 Making sense of the oppressiveness of summer in Japan Japan has a venerable tradition of quirky and inventive means of escape from the oppression of summer, as well as from rigid social constraints and conventions. Some of them take distinctly weird forms. In Edogawa Ranpo's classic story, "The Stalker in the Attic" (1925), ...

	The Mainichi
		Edging Toward Japan: Natsume Soseki's subversive use of words By Damian Flanagan About 15 years ago, I remember having a conversation with an I… (2019/7/2)

	The Japan Times
		Aug 31, 2019 'Life for Sale': Yukio Mishima's comically psychedelic take on the adventure novel "Life for Sale" — first serialized in Weekly Playboy in 1968 — was, for long years, dismissed as mere "entertainment." Yet the surprising bestseller is a terrific example of Mishima's fecund imagination at its most free-wheeling and unfettered best.

	The Japan Times
		Aug 3, 2019 How Japan's modern literature came under Nietzsche's spell To truly understand some of 20th-century Japan's most iconic literary works, you have to go back to ancient Greek tragedy and the "Dionysian" philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche.

	The Japan Times
		Jun 8, 2019 'Three Japanese Short Stories' review: A literary amuse-bouche In "Three Japanese Short Stories," stories by noted authors Kafu Nagai, Koji Uno and Ryonosuke Akutagawa illustrate a Japan grappling with the wider world.

	The Japan Times
		Jun 5, 2019 From enlightened strolls to 10,000-step goals: How Japan learned to walk the walk Whatever intriguing cultural differences we may have as human beings, it would appear that there are certain fundamentals that remain the same wherever you go — eating, sleeping and walking, for example. Yet, if you think about it, even these fundamentals vary radically from place ...

	The Japan Times
		May 12, 2019 Memoirs from a Japanese internet cafe While some people pine for traditions from Japan's ancient past, it might actually be the more modern things that we'll truly miss.

	The Japan Times
		May 11, 2019 'Much Ado About Nothingness': Exploring the diverse philosophies of the Kyoto School — review James Heisig's "Much Ado About Nothingness" strives to link the philosophies of Kirato Nishida and Hajime Tanabe with broader intellectual and artistic themes.

	The Mainichi
		Edging Toward Japan: Shining a different light on familiar art works By Damian Flanagan Throughout my late 20s and early 30s, a picture called "The Lo… (2019/5/30)

	The Japan Times
		May 4, 2019 Lafcadio Hearn's 'Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan': Reveling in the remote and mystical — review Lafcadio Hearn's "Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan" is an unmissable book offering a visceral, firsthand experience of a Japan now largely vanished.

	The Mainichi
		Edging Toward Japan: The 'queen' of the board's shifting status in chess and shogi By Damian Flanagan A couple of years ago, I taught my 8-year-old son to play chess… (2019/5/21)

	The Irish Times
		Room height is the most absurdly undervalued quality of a property April 26, 2019 Check out the details of any house or flat for sale and they are likely to tell you the length and width of any room, offer you a two-dimensional floor plan, as well as a total floor area. The actual ceiling height of the rooms is almost treated as an irrelevance.

	The Japan Times
		Apr 20, 2019 'Japan' by Jeff Kingston: Taking stock of a country in a time of transition and change Jeff Kingston's "Japan" is a concise, highly readable overview of Japan's political evolution from 1945 to the present, observed from an overarching historical perspective.

		Edging Towards Japan 3: Yearning for vibrant Japanese TV classics The 1970s Japanese TV show "Monkey" aired in the UK in 1979 and acquired a longstanding cult following. The show was an even bigger hit in Australia and was widely broadcast across Latin America from Mexico to Argentina. Why did it never happen again?

	The Japan Times
		Mar 22, 2019 Haruki Murakami: Writing in a parallel universe, connecting with a global readership In Japan, it was the runaway best-seller status of "Norwegian Wood" (1987), his wistful tale of crushed innocence and young love that sold more than 4 million copies in Japanese alone, that established Murakami's iconic status.

	The Irish Times
		Property investment shouldn't be solely focused on personal profit I always felt though that if I looked after the property, nurtured and improved it, eventually the property would look after me. Nearly all home owners share this sentiment – owning property is a long-haul journey rather than a short-term hop.

	The Japan Times
		Mar 16, 2019 'The Unmaking of an American': One thread in a lifetime of cultural exploration Roger Pulvers' latest memoir, "The Unmaking of an American," takes readers on an engaging and occasionally revelatory tour of Japan and Pulvers' own family history.

	The Mainichi
		Edging Towards Japan: The strong influence of the mirrors of Western art In 1900 Natsume Soseki arrived in London for two years and, with an avid interest in visual art, began closely observing Pre-Raphaelite pictures and absorbing their influence... In many places in Soseki's early works, art-inspired "mirrors" play a crucial role.

	The Japan Times
		Kafu Nagai's 'Geisha in Rivalry' abounds with scheming, manipulation and, yes, sex Although this edition of "Geisha in Rivalry" is a translation of a censored version of the more racy original, it represents Nagai's rediscovery of the fast-disappearing traditional culture of Japan.

	The Mainichi
		Edging Towards Japan: The joy of walking In the summer of 1988, at age 19, I visited Japan for the first time. From Tokyo to Kyoto and Niigata to Sapporo, I traipsed from one urban centre to another, but somewhere outside Morioka, Iwate Prefecture, I decided to start walking.

	The Irish Times
		How to maximise the return on an investment property? Live long enough And just as I was thinking that, for the property investor, the old-fashioned paid-off-the-mortgage huzzah moment of delight is a rarity, I discovered an intriguing equivalent.

	The Japan Times
		Meet one of Japan's greatest modern philosophers in 'Nishida Kitaro: The Man and His Thought' First published in Japanese in 1985, "Nishida Kitaro: The Man and His Thought" brings together diverse essays about both Nishida and his philosophy of "absolute nothingness" written by his former pupil Keiji Nishitani (1900-90).

	The Irish Times
		What snooker taught me about property investing The key is to 'pot all the balls' but you must use a calculated strategy to do so.

	The Japan Times
		How Japan unleashed Xun's ferocious literary passion You might not realise that one of the most revolutionary moments in modern world literarture occured in Japan, but involved not a Japanese, but the most celebrated of all modern Chinese authors.

	The Irish Times
		You might not be a TV star, but your home could be... Consolations of a Property Investor: I’m now dreaming that some of my properties might develop TV careers of their own

	The Japan Times
		Spreading the word of the philosophers of nothingness Just as the intense contemplation of Western literary works by Japanese writers in the Meiji Era (1868-1912) led to the explosive emergence of modern Japanese literature, there are clear parallels in the world of Japanese philosophy with its interaction with Western philosophy.

	The Japan Times
		'Philosophers of Nothingness': Philosophy built on quietly gripping human dramas The inescapable ephemerality of all natural phenomena is a concept as old as Japanese culture itself, systematized within Buddhist thought as the idea that the essence of all existence lies in a return to “nothingness.”

	The Japan Times
		Kobo Abe's 'The Ark Sakura': A surreal narrative worth reading twice In this puzzling, dream-like narrative that requires considerable contemplation, an obese recluse lives in a vast underground bunker situated in a quarry, fearing an imminent apocalypse. At the center of the bunker is a huge all-powerful toilet capable of flushing away anything placed within its reach, where the protagonist was once chained as a child by his rapist father.

	The Japan Times
		The hidden heart of Natsume Soseki With two important anniversaries in relation to author Natsume Soseki being celebrated, Damian Flanagan attempts to dissect the psyche of one of the country's greatest modern writers.

	The Japan Times
		With deft portraits and prescient predictions, Lafcadio Hearn's 'Kokoro' offers snapshots of early modern Japan Published six years after his arrival in the country in 1890, "Kokoro" was the third volume of essays on Japan by the prolific Ango-Irish author Lafcadio Hearn.

	The Japan Times
		'The Frolic of the Beasts': A Mishima classic, roused from its long hibernation Andrew Clare has published an impressive array of translations... Now, Clare is launching his translation of a classic Yukio Mishima novel, “The Frolic of the Beasts,” first published in Japanese in 1961.

	The Japan Times
		Rational analysis and mystic poetry combine in Kenzaburo Oe's 'Rouse Up O Young Men' In the afterglow of Kenzaburo Oe’s awarding of the Nobel Prize in 1994, many translations of his works were greeted warmly, but at this remove, it’s striking how many of these books retrace the same Oe themes: dealing, emotionally and practically, with a severely disabled son, while coming to terms with the death of his own father in the final days of World War II.

	The Japan Times
		A journey to hell with Osamu Daza, Japan's ultimate bad biy novelist Dazai is the ultimate bad boy of Japanese literature and "Ningen Shikkaku," recently re-translated by Mark Gibeau as "A Shameful Life," is his supreme masterpiece, a novel that still shocks today with its brutal honesty and unflinching, strangely thrilling pessimism.

	The Irish Times
		Just how much space do you really need? It does no harm for young people to live in smaller spaces when they are busy socialising

	The Japan Times
		Kenzaburo Oe's 'Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness': Reflections on father-son relationships Translator John Nathan introduces four short novels with an intriguing description of the 1964 Christmas Eve party at Yukio Mishima’s home where Nathan first met Oe and fellow novelist Kobo Abe.

	The Irish Times
		How ‘in love’ with a property do you really need to be to buy it? Consolations of a property investor: I feel little emotional tie to most properties and find it amusing that a seller will occasionally want a buyer to profess love their property

	The Japan Times
		Strongly autobiographical, 'Death by Water' reflects on Kenzaburo Oe's own oeuvre Taking its title from T. S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land,” Oe’s strongly autobiographical novel — published in 2009 at the age of 74 — sees his elderly fictional alter ego, Kogito Choko, return to his native Matsuyama, in Ehime Prefecture, to write a long-deferred work (simply known as “The Drowning Novel”) about his father’s mysterious death in the last days of World War II.

	The Japan Times
		You're living in Japan — so now for something completely different Japan is known throughout the world for its work ethic, but it should be equally known as a place that is extraordinarily nurturing and supporting of personal interests, no matter how seemingly outlandish and incongruous.

	The Japan Times
		Kenzaburo Oe's 'Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids' condemns wartime cruelty Kenzaburo Oe’s first novel, published in 1958 when he was only 23, tells of a group of reformatory school children evacuated to a remote village to escape wartime bombing raids, only to be cut off and abandoned when plague breaks out. Sneaking into houses to find food, the children assume control of the village as they encounter a Korean boy who teaches them how to hunt, a deserted soldier and a local girl whose mother has just died.

	The Japan Times
		Taking the path once trodden by Ian Fleming and James Bond A 1962 trip to Japan inspired 007’s adventures in “You Only Live Twice” Tasked to trace the route across Japan that Ian Fleming, the author of James Bond, took in 1962 — and which Bond himself largely follows in Fleming’s penultimate 007 novel “You Only Live Twice” (1964) — it was suggested I could experience the same route but with modern sensibilities.

	The Japan Times
		'On the Bullet Train with Emily Bronte' delves into Japan's fascination with an English classic Both before and after World War II, Edmund Blunden, a noted English poet and critic, lectured throughout Japan and pronounced the three greatest tragedies in the English language to be “King Lear,” “Moby-Dick” and “Wuthering Heights,” sparking a fascination with Emily Bronte (1818-48) that has continued to this day.

	The Irish Times
		The hoarder from hell: Landlord gets nasty surprise Addressing the issue of hoarding with a tenant has to be approached with sensitivity

	The Irish Times
		Would you ever live in your ‘spiritual home’? Or should you keep it hidden up your sleeve, to only use when the time is right?

	The Japan Times
		'The Crazy Iris': Unflinching stories inspired by the aftermath of the atomic bomb Kenzaburo Oe first chronicled the legacy of the nuclear holocausts of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in his collection of 1960s writings, “Hiroshima Notes.” Here though, Oe’s role is restricted to introducing and editing the short stories of a diverse collection of writers who have written about the effects of the A-bombs.

	The Mainichi	Damian Flanagan - Contributer
		Mishima influence can be seen in early Murakami novels Haruki Murakami has always been insistent that he has been very little influenced by Yukio Mishima and far prefers Japanese authors like Natsume Soseki, Junichiro Tanizaki and Ryunosuke Akutagawa. That may be true, but when I read the early novels of Murakami I see the influence of Mishima everywhere.

	The Mainichi	Damian Flanagan - ContributerContributer
		James Bond embraces Japan as British imperial order crumbles worldwide Japan existed at first in Fleming's imagination as the ultimate "other," positioned on the far edge of the world, with an impenetrable culture. But then, following the humiliation of the Suez Crisis in 1956, the certainty of Fleming's colonial world view began to crumble and Fleming suddenly began to embrace the "other" of Japan.


	The Mainichi	Damian Flanagan - Contributer
		Century-old postcard sheds light on dark Days of author Soseki's life in UK A postcard has emerged sent by the Japanese engineer Nagao Hanpei to a Japanese scholar of German literature then living in Berlin.. and is co-signed by a "Natsume Kinnosuke" (the real name of Natsume Soseki). The card specifically indicates being in Edinburgh on Nov. 1, 1901... It has always been thought that apart from a single night... Soseki never left London. But this postcard potentially explodes that idea.

	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - Contributing writer
		Kobo Abe's 'Kangaroo Notebook' is absurdist, surrealist and occasionally exasperating Is this bizarrely oneiric journey, daikon sprouts and all, really just Kobo Abe's exteriorized exploration of a tortured psyche? (Part of the Japan Times series Essential reading for Japanophiles)

	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - Contributing writer
		Twenty-five years on, Alan Booth's voice is brought back to life "This Great Stage of Fools" offers a collection of Alan Booth's uncollected journalism and writings between 1979 and his untimely death in 1993. Booth is be considered one of the greatest writers on Japan of his generation.

	The Irish Times	Damian Flanagan - Columnist
		Know your builder’s limits – they can’t do everything You might not be familiar with “corbels” – neither was I until they led me unwittingly into the greatest building disaster of my 25-year career in property, nearly bankrupting me and literally bringing a building down upon my head. (An article for Damian Flanagan's Property Consolations column.)

	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - Voices - Foreign Agenda
		Zen and the art of Premier League dominance: Buddhist philosophy links Manchester United, Arsenal and Japan Can the success of Alex Ferguson's 'kids' and Arsene Wenger's 'Invincibles' be linked to Buddhist philosophy? It's worth a try.

	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - Books / reviews
		Yasunari Kawabata's 'Dandelions' probes the nature of mental illness Initially published by Yasunari Kawabata (1899-1972) in 22 installments between June 1964 and October 1968, and subsequently revised from his notes after his death, "Dandelions" examines the nature of memory. (Part of the Japan Times series Essential reading for Japanophiles)

	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - Books / reviews
		Kenzaburo Oe's 'Seventeen and J: Two Novels': 1960s Japan on the brink of social revolution On the cusp of the 1960s sexual revolution and the anti-Vietnam War movement, "Seventeen" and "J" are intriguing primers on the seething social turbulence of the age. (Part of the Japan Times series Essential reading for Japanophiles)

	The Daily Telegraph	Damian Flanagan - Contributer
		It's a crisis for democracy that Manchester has become a one-party Labour state. Will London be next? Between 2010 and 2016 every single councillor in the 96-seat Manchester City Council hailed from the Labour Party... How can a country operate when its governing party has been completely banished from its second city? (Note: this article is behind the Daily Telegraph paywall, but can be accessed for free with online registration.)

	The Irish Times	Damian Flanagan - Columnist
		'When they left my tenants defacated on the carpet as a parting gift' A mental hit parade of traumatic renters. One Landlord's tale. (An article for Damian Flanagan's Property Consolations column.)

	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		Lose yourself in 'The Face of Another,' Abe's exitensial fantasy Losing face and the public humiliation associated with it is something that we all dread but, in Kobe Abe's 1964 fantasy 'The Face of Another', the metaphorical term is made real. (Part of the Japan Times series Essential reading for Japanophiles)

	The Irish Times	Damian Flanagan - Columnist
		Robots and modular homes: are we ready to step into the future? Techological advancements are set to revolutionise the way we live. Are you ready? Or will you yearn for self-determined individuality? (An article for Damian Flanagan's Property Consolations column.)

	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - CONTRIBUTING WRITER
		Haruki Murakami: Literary lightweight or global superstar? You know you've made it as an author when there are week-long conferences dedicated to your work that attract scholars, critics and translators from all over the world and which you, the author, do not feel the need to attend.

	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		'Quicksand': A racy transition from old Tanizaki to new This 1931 novel is classic Tanizaki and whos off his talent for exuberant storytelling within a multi-layered narrative of sexual obsession. (Part of the Japan Times series Essential reading for Japanophiles)

	The Irish Times	Damian Flanagan - Columnist
		Househunter beware: nothing is "final" until the contract is signed A handshake is never binding - expect reversals at every turn. (An article for Damian Flanagan's Property Consolations column.)

	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		The Irish influence on Soseki, a pioneer of Japanese literature St. Patrick's Day is the time of year when many raise a glass in their local "authentic Irish" pub to Ireland's literary greats, from master satirist Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) to poet Seamus Heaney (1939-2013). In Japan too, the dynamic interaction of Ireland and Japan's ...

	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		The Japanese lessons of a 'plastic Paddy' A Briton of Irish stock finds the "Irishness" he seeks not on the Emerald Isle itself but in the expat pubs of his adopted land.

	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		Sowing the seeds of a great Tanizaki biography Into the world of the familial memoir steps this slim, but fascinating volume titled, "Remembering Tanizaki Junichiro and Matsuko: Diary Entries, Interview Notes, and Letters, 1954-1989."

	The Irish Times	Damian Flanagan - COLUMNIST
		An arts education might just come in handy in a property career '"You don't need a degree to succeed in business," is a mantra my mother has always repeated to me...' Consolations of a property investor column.

	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		Exploring the leaps and bounds of Japanese feminism "Rethinking Japanese Feminisms" is a collection of short essays by 15 academics on diverse aspects of gender issues in Japan. Topics range from the androgynous eroticism in the art works of Taisho Era (1912-1926) illustrator Kasho Takabatake to reactions to the enactment of the ...

	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		1970s Japanese TV series 'Monkey' had a magic that has never been matched The news that "Monkey" has been remade by Australia's ABC in a co-production with TV New Zealand and Netflix is likely to cause those in the know to fan two fingers in front of their mouth, Monkey-style, to summon a flying cloud.

	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

		Yukio Mishima: Saints and seppuku In March 1937, an official in the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Azusa Hiraoka, traveled to Europe on government business and acquired some guides to Italian museums. Prudishly fearing, however, that his 12-year-old son might be exposed to the depictions of female nudes contained within, ...
	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		'Secret Rendezvous' reveals primeval urge for knowledge and sexual satisfaction "Secret Rendezvous" opens with an ambulance in the dead of night: The narrator's wife is taken to an underground hospital from which she vanishes. The connections to Franz Kafka's "The Trial" in the absurdist, comical and sinister world of Kobo Abe are unmissable, but ... (Part of the Japan Times series Essential reading for Japanophiles)

	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		Yasunari Kawabata's surrealist window on the world Opening with one of the most famous lines in Japanese literature — "Emerging from the long border tunnel, they entered snow country," shifting us at speed from the darkness of the tunnel into the bright light of the snow — Yasunari Kawabata's novel "Snow ...

	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		You're living in Japan — so now for something completely different In a way, foreign residents who gravitate toward a third culture are simply following in a fine Japanese tradition.

	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		'Hiroshima Notes': Kenzaburo Oe on Hiroshima and the U.S. Occupation In 1963, 28-year-old novelist and rising star Kenzaburo Oe was sent to Hiroshima to report on the rancorous split between political groups calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons. Hiroshima Notes, by Kenzaburo Oe.192 pages GROVE ATLANTIC, Nonfiction. It would be the first of multiple visits to ... (Part of the Japan Times series Essential reading for Japanophiles)

	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		Natsume Soseki's Pre-Raphaelite dreams In 1900, the future novelist Natsume Soseki — then a scholar of English literature — arrived in London to commence two years of study abroad. Back in Japan, his best friend, the renowned haiku poet Masaoka Shiki, had — as explained in the first ...

	The Irish Times	Damian Flanagan - COLUMNIST
		Some would-be tenants are intimidated by grandeur, despite the price. 'If you are in the property business, generally speaking it makes sense to adopt an emotionally neutral position towards the properties you are offering for rent.' Consolations of a property investor column.

	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		'In Search of the Way': looks for enlightenment Richard bowring, religion, shinto , Confucianism, China, Shingo Buddhism

	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		How the visual arts shaped Japan's modern literature Early on in Natsume Soseki's 1908 campus novel "Sanshiro" — one of the most important expositions of the inter-connectedness of visual and literary art ever written — a young scientist, Nonomiya, looks up at a long, thin, white cloud floating diagonally in the sky. "Do ...

	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		Buying a house in Japan can be an investment in joy The "return" on your investment in a home in Japan is best measured in terms of the pleasure it will yield and the doorway to the intimacies of community and the Japanese mind it will lure you into.

	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		'Devils in Daylight' and 'The Maids': The literary sleuthing of Junichiro Tanizaki Question: Is it really the case that for a large part of the 20th century Japan enjoyed a golden age of literature? Or is this just misty-eyed nostalgia? One of the hallmarks of a golden age is an atmosphere of competitive creativity in which a ...

	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		Hideo Kobayashi: Spearheading the age of the professional critic In the autumn of 1956, Japan's most renowned literary critic, the 54-year-old Hideo Kobayashi, engaged in taidan ( a "conversation" to be published in a magazine) with 31-year-old rising literary star Yukio Mishima. Early that year Mishima's novel, "The Temple of the Golden Pavilion," had ...

	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		How a love of Japan led me to stop dating its women A British academic concludes that the only way he can truly enjoy and develop his love for Japan is by excluding his love life from the equation.

	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		Junichiro Tanizaki: Speaking to the light from the shadows In 1933, when Junichiro Tanizaki (1886-1965) published his short but landmark essay "In Praise of Shadows," it could hardly be seen as anything other than a riposte to the "enlightening" agenda of the great cultural critic Fukuzawa Yukichi of the preceding Meiji Era (1868-1912). Fukuzawa ...

	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		To find the joys of 'real Japan,' get on your bike Japanese society and culture seem intrinsically suited to bicycles, which require a degree of safety of environment and intimacy that are alien to many thunderously car-based, brash and crime-ridden Western societies.

	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		'The Sea and Poison': Shusaku Endo dissects the human capacity for evil This 1957 novel has at its heart Shusaku Endo's fascination with a seemingly tranquil and civilized postwar Japan still traumatized by the horrors of the Pacific War. Even a harmless-looking gas station attendant might be a grizzled war veteran involved in brutal killings on (Part of the Japan Times series Essential reading for Japanophiles)

	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		Japan - Where the Suburbs Meet Utopia 'The Suburbs, that infinite sprawl of tedious families and tired salarymen, that vast waiting room for the weekly revels of the city... I longed to move downtown [but once entrusted with] a convenient pied-a-terre in the heart of the city... but after just one night, I quickly came to change my mind.'

	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		Fukazawa Yukichi: A cultral critic truly ahead of his time "The greatest of all the cultural critics — and the true founder of modern Japan — was Fukuzawa Yukichi (1835-1901), whose sagacious visage looks out at us from the ¥10,000 note."

	The Daily Express	Damian Flanagan - FEATURE ARTICLE
		Why modern Japan is a joy for westerners "What’s most precious about Japan is something which I can experience in my own little house there and while pottering around the suburb without going anywhere. It can be summarized in a single word: service. And it’s a quality which the UK would benefit in learning from the Japanese."


	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - FEATURE ARTICLE
		The extraordinary untold Japan story of 'You Only Live Twice' Ian Fleming wrote You Only Live Twice after touring Japan in 1959 with his hard-drinking Australian journalist friend Richard Hughes. He immortalised this already larger than life character as Dicko Henderson in his novel. The real story of Hughes turns out to be more fantastical than even a Jamese Bond story. There was indeed more to the convivial Australian than met the casual eye. Damian Flanagan unpicks the story using the techniques of Sherlock Holmes himself.

	Daily Express	Damian Flanagan - FEATURE ARTICLE
		'Wasn't like that in my day' Damian FLANGAN reflects how growing up has changed Damian Flanagan has a lot to say to his young children: "Go play in the garden... stop watching TV... those sweets will rot your teeth... [and of course] things were different when I was a child!" But when he rediscovered his diary written when he was 9 years old, it wasn't quite how he remembered it...

	The Irish Times	Damian Flanagan - COLUMNIST
		PROPERTY CONSOLATIONS COLUMN JUNE 15, 2017 Landlord types are always an extension of their personality The 'business model' is about more than profiteering "In business, although we all operate within the parameters afforded by profit and loss, it's impossible not to operate in a manner which projects your own personality, regardless of whether this actively leads to increased success or not."

	Sydney Morning Herald	Damian Flanagan - FEATURE ARTICLE
		You Only Live Twice: Australian double agent the secret of James Bond classic The extraordinary story of the renowned Australian Correspondent and spy Richard Huges who inspired Ian Fleming when he wrote the Jamese Bond classic You Only Live Twice.

	The Irish Times	Damian Flanagan - COLUMNIST
		PROPERTY CONSOLATIONS COLUMN MAY 23, 2017 Small room or large? The reverse psychology of house sharing Friends love to live together - but when it comes to bedroom allocation, size matters Our relationship to property can offer considerable insights into human nature but the reverse is also true - understanding human psychology can help you succeed when it comes to property.

	Daily Express	Damian Flanagan - FEATURE ARTICLE
		You Only Live Twice, anniversary: The amazing true story behind the film It is only now that the fascinating true story behind You Only Live Twice is coming to light. At the crux of it is an eccentric highly secretive and apparently boorish Australian foreign reporter called Richard Huges who was a close friend of Ian Fleming and an obsessive fan of Sherlock Holmes.

	The Irish Times	Damian Flanagan - COLUMNIST
		PROPERTY CONSOLATIONS COLUMN MAY 19, 2017 What Scarlett O'Hara can teach you about buying a house Welcome to the school of tenacious property owners. "What is easy to miss about Gone With the Wind though is the strong Irish aspect resonating through every aspect of the novel. Scarlett’s ancestors have themselves been dispossessed of land back in Ireland and now her Irish father is determined that, come what may, that will never happen again. The very estate name “Tara” harks back to the burial ground of Irish Kings."

	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

		APR 15, 2017 'The Book of the Dead': The first complete translation of Shinobu Orikuchi's classic Both influential and deeply mysterious, “The Book of the Dead” (“Shisha no Sho,” 1943) is the most famous work of fiction by Shinobu Orikuchi (1887-1953), a pioneer of folklore studies in Japan and renowned poet. Orikuchi was fascinated with the origins of Japanese religion ...

	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		BOOK JAN 21, 2017 The triumphant second coming of Endo's 'Silence' Martin Scorsese’s adaptation of “Silence,” Shusaku Endo’s tale of Catholic missionaries suffering brutal repression in 17th-century Japan, has met with mixed reviews. Some have found it ponderously overlong and, for those unfamiliar with Japanese history, baffling in context. It is, in fact, not a ...

	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		BOOK JAN 14, 2017 Mishima and the maze of sexuality in modern Japan In June 1948, novelist Osamu Dazai committed suicide. The 38-year-old, who had just completed his masterpiece, “No Longer Human,” and whose fame was peaking, jumped into Tokyo’s Tamagawa Canal with his mistress, Tomie Yamazaki, and drowned. With his acid wit and nihilistic vision, Dazai ...

	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		TRAVEL DEC 17, 2016 Natsume Soseki and 'The Orient's No. 1 Elevator' What is the top tourist destination in the Kansai region? Is it Kyoto’s geisha district? Is it the temples and bamboo forests of Arashiyama? Is it the town of Yoshino, with Japan’s most famous cherry blossoms? The majestic views from Mount Rokko in Kobe? ...
	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		BOOK DEC 17, 2016 Love, obsession and perverted desires in Japan's age of steam Japan began to open its doors to the West in the 1850s, after centuries of remaining closed. In the following decade, foreigners’ “concessions” were established in port cities such as Yokohama and Kobe to cope with the new visitors. The Japanese, with their characteristic ...

	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		BOOK NOV 26, 2016 The hidden heart of Natsume Soseki Dec. 9 marks the 100th anniversary of the death of Natsume Soseki (1867-1916), a novelist widely regarded as being the one of the greatest writers of modern Japan. Events commemorating this anniversary have been held throughout 2016 but, in case you think it will ...

	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		BOOK NOV 19, 2016 The shifting sexual norms in Japan's literary history More than 3,000 women and almost 900 men — that’s the number of lovers the main protagonist in Ihara Saikaku’s 1682 novel “Koshoku Ichidai Otoko” (“The Life of an Amorous Man”) tallies up as he reminisces. Saikaku, born in Osaka in 1642, became a ...
	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		TRAVEL NOV 5, 2016 Kofu: the mountain fortress of warlord Takeda Shingen In Akira Kurosawa’s classic 1980 film “Kagemusha” (“Shadow Warrior”), the 16th-century daimyo Takeda Shingen is mortally wounded by a sniper after being lured by the sound of a flute during a castle siege. Takeda’s clan know that rival warlords Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu ...

	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		TRAVEL OCT 8, 2016 The 'onsen' retreat that transformed Natsume Soseki Shuzenji, an onsen (hot-spring) town in the heart of the Izu Peninsula, is a little piece of heaven. Nestled in the densely wooded hills of Shizuoka Prefecture, its collection of baths, guesthouses and shops line up on either side of the rushing Katsura River, ...

	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		TRAVEL SEP 24, 2016 Shizuoka: Where writers go to hide from the world Ask a Japanese person which part of Japan they most associate with writer Lafcadio Hearn and they are likely to instantly respond: Matsue, a seaside town in Shimane Prefecture. Hearn is the man who introduced Japan to the West in the Meiji Period (1868-1912) ...

	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		REVIEW AUG 13, 2016 Writing Technology in Meiji Japan The industrial and social revolution that Japan underwent in the Meiji Era (1868-1912) was accompanied by an equally tumultuous revolution in the Japanese language. It’s perhaps hard to fathom today that throughout the latter half of the 19th century, an almost unbridgeable gulf existed ...
	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		BOOK JUL 30, 2016 Bushido: Soseki, 'Star Wars' and the samurai In September 1912, Gen. Maresuke Nogi — a hero of the Russo-Japanese War — committed ritual suicide. His sensational death took place on the day of Emperor Meiji’s funeral, making it an act of junshi (following one’s lord in death) and a high-water mark ...
	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		REVIEW JUL 30, 2016 'Inventing the Way of the Samurai': Debunking the myths surrounding Bushido Oleg Benesch’s “Inventing the way of the Samurai” is a seminal, scrupulously researched work that teems with ideas. Its content is profoundly relevant to current political developments in Japan, as questions about the Constitution and the nation’s identity come to the fore. Inventing the ...
	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		TRAVEL JUL 23, 2016 Wandering the 'real Japan': Following the far-north footsteps of Alan Booth Renowned travel writer Bruce Chatwin believed passionately in the importance of walking in the wild. The problems of humanity, he contended, were borne out of people being settled and static. But if you wanted to rediscover your nomadic self in a heavily urbanized country ...

	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		BOOK JUL 23, 2016 Bushido: The samurai code goes to war In a scene from the 1957 film “The Bridge on the River Kwai,” a haughty British Col. in a prisoner-of-war camp confronts the camp’s Japanese commandant. Citing the Geneva Convention as justification, he argues that his officers should not be forced into manual labor ...

	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		REVIEW JUL 23, 2016 'The Maid': A mind reader probes the intimate thoughts of her employers In Japan, true feelings (known as honne) are often hidden behind the mask of a false front (tatemae). So the comic potential of a mind-reading maid working in private family homes — encountering sexual frustrations, jealousy and the mutual resentment of parents and their ...
	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		BOOK JUL 16, 2016 Bushido: The awakening of Japan's modern identity Opinions are divided when it comes to Japan’s current Constitution, issued during the U.S. Occupation of 1945 -52: Is it an American imposition that unfairly refuses to recognize the nation as a “normal country” or a precious war-renouncing document that reflects Japan’s unique status ...
	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		BOOK JUN 18, 2016 Why are Japanese women still bewitched by the Brontes? Some years ago a sassy Osaka lady asked me to introduce her to the pleasures of Western literature. I duly handed her a variety of classic books, including “The Turn of the Screw,” “Heart of Darkness,” “Lolita” and “A Study in Scarlet.” They were ...
	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		REVIEW MAY 14, 2016 'Spectacular Accumulation' explains three warlords' obsession with objects In “Spectacular Accumulation” Morgan Pitelka relates the thrilling interactions between three “unifiers” of Japan in the tumultuous decades of the late 16th century and early 17th century. This trio of warlords includes the bloodthirsty Oda Nobunaga, the vainglorious Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu who ...
	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		REVIEW \| ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES APR 30, 2016 'Toddler-Hunting and Other Stories' is feminist fiction at its most disturbing “Toddler-Hunting and Other Stories” is a superb collection of short stories written in the 1960s by one of the most significant feminist writers of postwar Japan. Toddler-Hunting and Other Stories, by Kono Taeko, Translated by Lucy North.276 pagesNew Directions, Fiction. Kono Taeko — who ...
	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		REVIEW APR 23, 2016 In search of Japan's own Shakespeare April 23 marked the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare (1564-1616), the greatest dramatist of the English speaking world. The anniversary has a particular resonance here: Few countries in the world have embraced Shakespeare with Japan’s sustained passion. The Bard in Japan: ...
	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		REVIEW MAR 5, 2016 Ryu Murakami turns on another light in Tokyo's lurid basement This collection of short stories arrived with a warning from the publisher: “Graphic sexual content.” Perhaps it was worried that reviewers would blush to the tips of their toes upon reading it. However, anyone who has encountered Murakami’s excruciating 1992 sadomasochistic film “Topazu” (“Tokyo ...
	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		............ REVIEW JAN 30, 2016 The Whale That Fell in Love with a Submarine Akiyuki Nosaka (1930-2015), was a man of many parts, variously a singer, lyricist, comedian and politician as well as a novelist and short story writer. His diverse successes in later life however betrayed an extraordinarily traumatic youth that saw his mother die soon after ...
	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		BOOK JAN 23, 2016 Insect Literature The Berlin-based author Yoko Tawada recently remarked that one of the difficulties she faced when translating Kafka’s short story “Metamorphosis” into Japanese was that the associations Japanese people had with insects — even presumably giant beetles — were different to those of Europeans. Tawada ...
	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		REVIEW \| ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES JAN 16, 2016 Lost Japan Originally published in Japanese in 1993 (with the English translation following in 1996), “Lost Japan,” the first book by Alex Kerr, has recently been re-released by Penguin. A fascinating chronicle of Kerr’s diverse interactions with the country, the book spans such subjects as restoring ...
	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		REVIEW \| ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES JAN 2, 2016 A Fantastic Journey: The Life and Literature of Lafcadio Hearn Paul Murray, biographer of both Lafcadio Hearn and his close contemporary Bram Stoker, has combined working as a writer with a distinguished career in the Irish Foreign Service, including a stint in Tokyo in the 1970s before eventually becoming Irish ambassador to South Korea. ...
	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		........ BOOK DEC 26, 2015 Flipping back through the good reads of 2015 Before we turn the page on the year, here's a selection of our reviewers' favorite books.
	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		REVIEW DEC 26, 2015 Partners in Print: Artistic Collaboration and the Ukiyo-e Market The purported thesis of this book — that the art of publishing is a collaborative process involving the cooperation of writer, illustrator, patron, publisher and (shock) even consumer — seems obvious. Yet the four academic essays on ukiyo-e art contained within are both stimulating ...
	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		GENERAL NOV 21, 2015 Yukio Mishima's enduring, unexpected influence Forty-five years ago this week — at just after 10 a.m. on the bright, cold morning of Nov. 25, 1970 — a telephone rang at the Tokyo home of popular enka singer Hideo Murata. On the line was author Yukio Mishima, a man who ...
	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		REVIEW \| ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES NOV 14, 2015 'Living Carelessly in Tokyo and Elsewhere' with translator John Nathan John Nathan arrived in Japan in the early 1960s and set about constantly pushing his limits, becoming the first Westerner to graduate from the esteemed University of Tokyo. And by age 25, he had published a translation of Yukio Mishima’s “The Sailor Who Fell ...
	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		VOICES \| FOREIGN AGENDA NOV 11, 2015 Let women and the world into kabuki and watch it flourish Kabuki has the ability to enrich the imagination of the world; it should not be held back by insular vision and outmoded conservatism.
	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		REVIEW OCT 24, 2015 Natsume Soseki goes back to hell in 'The Miner' Natsume Soseki’s 1908 novel “The Miner” has often been regarded as an oddity. It stands aloof both in subject matter and style from the two great “trilogies” Soseki penned between 1908 and 1914. The Miner, by Natsume Soseki, Translated by Jay Rubin. 264 pages ...
	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
	.	BOOK OCT 10, 2015 Lefkada's Hearn: Europe reclaims its literary 'lost son' The Greek island of Lefkada, rising from the Ionian Sea south of Corfu, is famed for its white beaches and vertical cliffs from which the poet Sappho is said to have leaped to her death. The island is also claimed as the one of ...
	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		BOOK SEP 12, 2015 Jesus Christ, the Nobel Prize and Shusaku Endo In 1994, on the day when Kenzaburo Oe was announced as the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature — the second Japanese writer to receive the award — eminent literary scholar Donald Keene received a long-distance call from Peter Owen, publisher of novelist ...
	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		REVIEW SEP 12, 2015 Martin Scorsese and experts analyze Shusaku Endo's 1966 novel in 'Approaching Silence' An adaptation of Shusaku Endo’s 1966 novel “Silence” — about Jesuit priests and Christian converts suffering repression in 17th-century Japan — is currently being filmed by Martin Scorsese in Taiwan and scheduled for release next year. Approaching Silence, Edited by Mark W. Dennis and ...
	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		BOOK SEP 5, 2015 Literature critic John Nathan dissects Japan's Nobel Prize laureates There is one critic of Japanese literature that towers above the rest: professor John Nathan, erstwhile associate of Yukio Mishima, Kenzaburo Oe and Kobo Abe. But he’s not only a respected critic, Nathan’s extraordinary career has seen him in the roles of film director, ...
	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		BOOK AUG 29, 2015 Mishima, Murakami and the elusive Nobel Prize Will he or won’t he? It’s about the time of year when the Japanese media descends into a frenzy of speculation about whether Haruki Murakami will land the Nobel Prize in literature, becoming the first Japanese literary laureate since Kenzaburo Oe in 1994. There ...
	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
	...	BOOK AUG 22, 2015 Descending to the depths of Yukio Mishima's 'Sea of Fertility' It was 45 years ago this summer that Donald Keene, a leading critic and translator of Japanese literature, visited Yukio Mishima at his summer writing retreat on the Izu Peninsula. This was the last time the two close friends would leisurely enjoy each other’s ...
	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		BOOK AUG 1, 2015 New translation of the world's oldest novel ‘The Tale of Genji,” written by Murasaki Shikibu around 1,000 A.D., is regarded by many as the world’s first novel and is arguably the most influential work of Japanese literature ever written, inspiring countless other works of drama, fiction and fine art. The Tale ...
	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		REVIEW JUN 6, 2015 'Chopsticks' sifts through the cultural mysteries of Asia's eating implements In Q. Edward Wang’s hands, chopsticks are transformed from banal, everyday objects to a means of contemplating both the unfolding of world history and the subtleties of social norms. Chopsticks: A Cultural and Culinary History Q. Edward Wang, by 224 pages.Cambridge University Press, Nonfiction. ...
	The Japan Times	Damian Flanagan - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
		BOOK FEB 14, 2015 The three-cornered world of Glenn Gould and Natsume Soseki Two years after it was published, a copy of Natsume Soseki's novella "The Three-Cornered World" was placed in the hands of one of the world's most celebrated pianists, Glenn Gould.