Tour dates, public lectures and other news
Hugely enjoyed my visit to Alderney to speak at its wonderful Festival. Of the ten authors seven were stranded for the night at Southampton because of fog in Alderney, which meant we all had a chance to bond. We finally got there the next day by flying to Guernsey then taking the boat over choppy waters to Alderney […]
In conversation with Tyrel Cameron Eskelson – talking about Lesley’s career as a writer about Japan. […]
Talking to Joshua Provan about The Shortest History of Japan, and how she found the stories to make Japanese history more accessible than ever. […]
Lesley Downer, the author of The Shortest History of Japan, reviews the Silk Roads exhibition at the British Museum, open until February, 2025. […]
Speaking about about Matsuo Basho’s haiku, mountain ascetics and Japan’s undiscovered north. […]
Not all shoguns and samurai. On Monday October 21st, I will be speaking to the Japan Society on some of the extraordinary women who populate Japanese history, starting with Himiko the Shaman Queen. […]
Two thousand years ago the land we now know as Japan was a patchwork of over a hundred small kingdoms, perpetually at war. Armies fought to grab more and better land for farming and to control the water supplies of river and lakes, fighting with bows and arrows and stone and bronze weapons. […]
In this piece Lesley Downer, an expert of Japanese culture and history and the author of The Shortest History of Japan and On the Narrow Road to the Deep North, explains how an advanced society sought to move without wheels.[…]
Lesley discusses her just-released The Shortest History of Japan: From Mythical Origins to Pop Culture Powerhouse, which provides a concise yet detailed account of Japanese history. […]
Lesley Downer on how she has told Japan’s history – in 50,000 words. […]