The People and Culture of Japan

This book features conversations between Donald Keene, a preeminent scholar of Japanese literature, and Shiba Ryotaro, the author who continued to contemplate the human condition through his original and distinctive lens of history. These talks―which mainly explore the foundation of Japanese culture―took place in Japanese on three occasions in 1971, in the historic cities of Nara, Kyoto and Osaka. Drawing on their profound insights into Japan's relations with foreign cultures over the course of Japanese history, the two engage in a passionate discussion of their first-hand impressions and observations of Japanese culture.

Donald KEENE
Donald Keene was born in New York in 1922. He graduated from Columbia University in 1942 and immediately entered the Navy Japanese Language School. He served as a translator and interpreter during the war. Afterwards, he obtained a doctoral degree from Columbia. He first taught at Cambridge University in 1948-53. He spent 1953-5 at Kyoto University. He became a professor at Columbia in 1955. Since then he has published about 50 books relating to Japanese literature. He received the Medal of Culture in 2008.

SHIBA Ryotaro
Shiba Ryotaro was born in Osaka in 1923, and graduated from the Mongolian department at the Osaka Foreign Language School. In 1960, while working as a newspaper reporter, he received the Naoki Prize for his first novel Fukuro no shiro (Castle of Owls), after which he became a full-time novelist. He has received many other awards, including the Japan Art Academy’s Imperial Award, for his many historical works such as Kukai no fukei (Kukai the Universal: Scenes from His Life). He received the Order of Culture in 1993. Other main works include Ryoma ga yuku (Ryoma Goes His Way), Kaido o yuku (On the Highway), Kono Kuni no Katachi (The Form of Our Country), and Saka no ue no kumo (Clouds above the Hill). He died in February 1996.

*information as of time of publication

Japan Library series
Culture

Publisher:
Japan Publishing Industry Foundation for Culture

Hardcover
¥3,000 + tax
ISBN 9784916055576
210 mm x 148 mm / 174 pp. / March 2016

Softcover
¥2,400 + tax
ISBN 9784866580487
210 mm x 148 mm / 174 pp. / May 2019

eBook
ISBN 9784916055669 (ePub)
ISBN 9784916055644 (PDF)

Foreword to the English Edition / Preface to the English Edition / Preface / 1. The Birth of Japanese Culture / 2. Kukai, Ikkyu, and the Universality of Religion / 3. The World of Gold, the World of Silver: The Aesthetics of Troubled Times / 4. The Japanese View of War / 5. Confucianism and Japanese Morals / 6. Westerners in Japan / 7. Japanese Morals, Revisited / 8. The Culture of Edo / Afterword / About the Authors

日本文学者・ドナルド・キーン、歴史小説家・司馬遼太郎による対談本。1971年、「日本文化とは何か」という大きな問いを軸に対談は3回にわたって日本語で行われた。日本の歴史における外来文化との関わりへの深い洞察のもと、「双方の体温で感じとった日本文化」が語られる。

ドナルド・キーン
1922年、ニューヨーク生まれ。日本文学研究者、文芸評論家。コロンビア大学名誉教授。42年にコロンビア大学を卒業後、すぐに米軍日本語学校に入学。太平洋戦争中は日英の翻訳・通訳に従事。その後、コロンビア大学院にて博士号を取得。48-53年にケインブリッジ大学にて教鞭をとり、53－55年は京都大学大学院に留学。アメリカ帰国後、コロンビア大学で日本文学を教える。多数の日本の作家と交流を深めながら古典から現代文学にいたるまで広く研究、海外に紹介。2008年、文化勲章を受章。

司馬遼太郎
1923年大阪生まれ。大阪外国語学校蒙古語部卒業。60年、新聞記者時代に『梟の城』で直木賞を受賞、作家に転じる。76年『空海の風景』など一連の歴史小説で日本芸術院恩賜賞を受賞するなど多くの章を受章。93年文化勲章受章。主な著書に『竜馬がゆく』『菜の花の沖』『街道をゆく』『この国のかたち』『坂の上の雲』など。96年2月死去。

＊著者略歴は書籍刊行時のものを表示しています。