front cover of Kafu the Scribbler
Kafu the Scribbler
The Life and Writings of Nagai Kafu, 1897–1959
Edward Seidensticker
University of Michigan Press, 1990
Kafū the Scribbler is neither pure biography nor pure criticism nor yet a pure anthology, but a blending of the three. It is an introduction to Nagai Kafū and his city, accompanied by a fairly generous sampling from his works. Marleigh Ryan writes:
“In this book Edward Seidensticker presents a unique combination of biography and literary criticism by skillfully interweaving details of the life of Nagai Kafū with studies of his writing. With quotations of from Kafū’s fiction and nonfiction alike, Seidensticker is able to reconstruct many incidents in the author’s life which had previously been little understood. The latter half of the book is given over to translations of short stories and to selections from two novels and a journal. Seidensticker has thoughtfully given cross references to the material in both parts of the book which enable the reader to handle this wealth of material with some dexterity.
“Seidensticker’s skill as a translator is so well established that it seems almost unnecessary to comment on it further here but one cannot help being impressed by his rendering of Kafū’s lyrical style. As we realize when reading the critical material, there is remarkably little plot or character development in Kafū’s fiction. His position as leading modern writer is dependent to a considerable degree upon the beauty and grace of his style, and we are fortunate indeed to have such masterful translations as these to convey that style.”*
*Ryan, Marleigh. Journal of the American Oriental Society 88, no. 3 (1968): 624. doi:10.2307/596924.
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Low City, High City
Tokyo from Edo to the Earthquake: how the shogun's ancient capital became a great modern city, 1867-1923
Edward Seidensticker
Harvard University Press, 1991

front cover of Remembering Tanizaki Jun’ichiro and Matsuko
Remembering Tanizaki Jun’ichiro and Matsuko
Diary Entries, Interview Notes, and Letters, 1954-1989
Anthony H. Chambers
University of Michigan Press, 2017
Remembering Tanizaki Jun’ichirō and Matsuko provides previously unpublished memories, anecdotes, and insights into the lives, opinions, personalities, and writings of the great novelist Tanizaki Jun’ichirō (18861965) and his wife Matsuko (19031991), gleaned from the diaries of Edward Seidensticker and two decades of Anthony Chambers’s conversations with Mrs. Tanizaki and others who were close to the Tanizaki family.
 
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Tokyo Rising
The City Since the Great Earthquake
Edward Seidensticker
Harvard University Press, 1991
The Great Earthquake of 1923 left much of Tokyo desolate. Shitamachi, the Low City, heart of Tokyo's cultural life for centuries, was a smoking ruin--hundreds of blocks of wooden dwellings, teahouses, and entertainment quarters gone forever. Yet Tokyo was a city that would not die. Here, in his brilliant sequel to Low City, High City: Tokyo from Edo to the Earthquake, Edward Seidensticker carries the story of this irrepressible metropolis forward to the present, showing it rising not only from the disaster of the earthquake but a second time, from the still more serious catastrophe of 1945, to become a city in which skyscrapers stand in the midst of neighborhoods jammed full of little bars and "soaplands," baseball is the national sport, one can spend $500 on a meal, the best subway system in the world is matched by the worst traffic jams, and only a multimillionaire can afford to buy a house. Exciting, horrifying, utterly distinctive, modern Tokyo comes to life in Tokyo Rising as never before.
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