By Alex kerr
Lost Japan
Travel literature
Lost Japan is a series of autobiographical essays, describing experiences I had since coming to Japan as a boy in 1964, and how the country has changed.
I wrote this book originally in Japanese as a series of articles for Shincho 45 magazine. In 1993, the articles came out as a book Utsukushiki Nihon no Zanzo (Last Glimpse of Beautiful Japan), which won the Shincho Gakugei literature award in 1994 (the first ever by a foreigner). I later translated the book with the help of Bodhi Fishman into English, and in 1996 Lonely Planet published the English version as Lost Japan.
My two books on Japan are yin and yang: Dogs and Demons is about present day issues, but Lost Japan is about the past and what it has to teach us. It’s a personal book, looking back to the glories of the old landscape and traditional culture.
Other Books
Lost Japan
Lost Japan is a series of autobiographical essays, experiences I had since coming to Japan as a boy in 1964, and how the country has changed.
Another Kyoto
Based on forty years in Kyoto, these conversations with Kathy Sokol, turn what we think we know about Kyoto inside-out.
Bangkok Found
Companion to Lost Japan, Bangkok Found is a mix of the essential and the quirky, as old culture meets global fusion in the crossroads that is Bangkok.
Dogs & Demons
Dogs and Demons combines a study of the financial, the bureaucracy, and culture, to get at the roots of Japan’s long malaise since the 1990s.