The Broken Bridge: Fiction from Expatriates in Literary Japan

by Suzanne Kamata

Absorbing fiction from Outsiders in a land that does not absorb foreigners easily. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1880656310
• ISBN13: 9781880656310
• Release Date: June 1997
• Publisher: Stone Bridge Press
• Length: 360 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Entertaining Anthology by Expats

This anthology was published in 1997 and contained 33 short stories and 3 excerpts from novels. The selections were from 36 non-Japanese authors who'd written fiction in English about Japan since World War II. More than half of the authors were living in Japan at the time the collection was published; the others had spent time there earlier. The goal of the book was to reflect the "variety of the expatriate experience." More than two-thirds of the writers hailed from the United States. The others included several Englishmen, two Australians, the Irishman David Burleigh, the London-born Swiss/British-Indian Meira Chand, the Japanese-born American Cheryl Chow, the Haitian-born American Michelle Leigh, and a Canadian-born American writing under the fetching pen name "Kate the Slops." Twelve of the authors were women. A few writers were of Asian or African-American background; the great majority of the authors were white. The best-known older writers included Hal Porter from Australia, James Kirkup, John Haylock, Francis King and Frank Tuohy from England, and Donald Richie, Edward Seidensticker and Philip Whalen from the United States. Others who were published novelists in fiction/nonfiction included the Australian John Bryson and the Americans Alan Brown, Alex Kerr and Phyllis Birnbaum. A number of the authors were also translators -- among them, Seidensticker, Kirkup, Birnbaum, Sanford Goldstein, William Wetherall and Ralph McCarthy. There was nothing in the collection to represent Angela Carter, one of the more prominent authors who lived in Japan and set a few presumably autobiographical stories there; "A Souvenir of Japan" might've been suitable. Twenty-two of the stories in the collection were written or first published in the 1990s. Seven were from the 1980s, five from the 1970s, and two from the 1960s. The earliest was a piece by Seidensticker written in 1961. An introduction by Richie mentioned the difficulty of finding fiction for the early postwar decades, since much of it appeared in obscure and vanished periodicals or was never published. Richie's introduction also summarized the various approaches of the collection's authors: focusing on the foreigner and his/her relation to Japan; looking at the country through a Japanese discipline like the tea ceremony, ikebana, bonsai or haiku; using the Japanese as a means to define one's own self; or describing a Japanese character from his/her own point of view. It was noted that a number of the authors concentrated on the differences from their home countries, compared the self from their own country and the self emerging in Japan, or sought in one way or another to come to terms with the country. It was claimed that such writing contrasted with that produced by the many expatriates who flocked to Paris but generally avoided making France or the French the subject of their work. Of the stories concerned more or less with foreigners coming to terms in Japan, enjoyed most were one about a

Unbelievable pictures of alienation

Anyone who writes for a living knows the first and foremost rule: write what you know about. The authors in this collection of short stories certainly know what it's like to be outsiders looking into a foreign culture. Anyone who has lived in a foreign country can identify with these rare glimpses into battered hearts which results from the initial over-idealisation of an adopted culture. The writing is superb and colourful and each story feels like a poignant confession. One thing which is missing; however, is the lure of the culture and the aspects which keep us all living in foreign countries. Hats off to the editor.She did a remarkable job of bringing all these stories together. If you enjoy good writing of any kind, you'll cherish this book.

Superb selection of best foreign writing about Japan.

This is a superb selection of the best short stories written by expatriate writers living in Japan. It is also the first such selection and promises some rare treats to readers unfamiliar with both the writers and the topic. There is a broad range of both topics and literary styles, by both well-known and previously unanthologized authors.