Book break

Tokyo: A Cultural And Literary History

By Stephen Mansfield

Tuesday, June 2, 2009, 6:30PM to 8:30PM

(The speech and Q & A will be in English)

In this his tenth book, "Tokyo: A　Cultural And Literary History," Japan-based photojournalist and author Stephen Mansfield, will talk on the subject of history, the impersistence of memory, the city biography as a form and the writing and research process required for a book of this kind. He will address the question of why, unlike other premier world capitals, there have been no monumental histories written of Tokyo.

Mansfield writes in the introduction to the book that "Tokyo's insecurities, the conviction that it could all be gone at any given moment, lend this city of dark premonitions and bright lights an intensity unlike any other capital in the modern world." Exploring the cross-bred cultures of taste, a city where space is interstitial, relationships to locations pliable and non-binding, one of the book's contentions is that the function of landmarks as memory in Tokyo is radically different to the west. A city so utterly fixated on the present would seem incapable of producing a culture deeper than the neon script and signage
that ripples across it surfaces, yet Tokyo, Westernized but insistently Japanese turns out, as Mansfield demonstrates, to be all about depth.

Describing the book in a recent review for the Japan Times, Donald Richie
observed that "Its cultural history, which is what Mansfield so splendidly
serves us, is a template of its times, and in offering it, this book joins the best... Scholarly but packed, pungent and personal, it gives us the new key to the city."

A dinner will be served at a cost of 1,850 yen (including tax). Sign up now at the reception desk (3211 3161) or online at http://fccj.or.jp. To help us plan proper seating and food preparation, please reserve in advance. Preferably by noon of the day of the event.

A reservation cancelled less than 24h in advance will be charged in full.

Library Committee, THE FOREIGN CORRESPONDENTS' CLUB OF JAPAN.