on japanese literature and other things
J KEITH VINCENT
Reading Sōseki Now
I’m happy to report that the volume on the Japanese novelist Natsume Soseki, which I have co-edited with Reiko Abe Auestad and Alan Tansman has been published as the latest issue of Josai University's Review of Japanese Culture and Society. The publication was so...
Brand New State
For my 51st birthday Anthony took me to see Daniel Fish’s production of Oklahoma! I knew it was supposed to be brilliant, but I had also read that the script was basically unchanged, and having recently rewatched the film version, I was having trouble imagining how it...
A Japanese Classic Illuminated
I am writing today because I want to share my excitement about the stunning show now up at the Met in New York, The Tale of Genji: A Japanese Classic Illuminated. You may think that you have seen enough old paintings of gold clouds and chubby pale-faced courtiers of indeterminate sex, but this show is something very special. The Tale of Genji, for those who may not know, is a thousand year-old novel written by woman named Murasaki Shikibu that has been as central to Japanese art and culture as the Bible in the West…
An Early Feminist Novel
Congratulations to my good friend Dawn Lawson, who has just won the Kyoko Selden Prize for her translation of Nakajima Shōen's 1889 novel, A Famous Flower in Mountain Seclusion (『山間の名花』). Nakajima (1861-1901), also known as Kishida Toshiko, was one of Japan's first...
Shiki’s second haiku
the white cat has disappeared snowy town Shironeko no / yukue wakarazu / yuki no machi 白猫の行衛わからず雪の町 It seems that Shiki was not satisfied with his first haiku about the cat on the roof that was heard but not seen. We know this because four years later, in 1889, he...
Shiki’s first haiku
the snow is falling and a white cat on the roof is heard but not seen Yuki furi ya / mune no shiro-neko / koe bakari 雪ふりや棟の白猫声ばかり[1] This is the first haiku that Masaoka Shiki wrote. He was seventeen years old and had been living in Tokyo for two...
Digitization of Matsuyama Shiki Society journal
In January of 2017 I came back from a trip to Matsuyama, Japan with a suitcase full of more than three decades’ worth of back issues of the journal of the Matsuyama Shiki Society, donated by the Society to Boston University. The journal is a treasure trove of research...
An index of Shiki haiku
As I work on a biography of Masaoka Shiki these days, I’m feeling very grateful to my friend Nanae Tamura for recommending that I buy this book at the Shiki Memorial Museum in Matsuyama last year. It’s an index of all of the haiku that appear in the standard...