Author Lesley Downer’s romance with Japan is no fleeting affair
British writer, historian and journalist Lesley Downer has been visiting Japan and writing about it for nearly 35 years — beginning in 1978, when she was part of the first-ever intake of the English Teaching Recruitment Program, which evolved into the famous JET (Japan Exchange and Teaching Program) scheme.
Since then, she has presented a popular BBC series on Japanese cookery, as well as making a documentary titled “Journey to a Lost Japan” for Britain’s Channel 4 TV and New York-based WNET, and one in Japanese on NHK TV, titled “Journey of the Heart” — each about her journey in the footsteps of a trek made by haiku poet Matsuo Basho (1644-94) that inspired his 1689 masterpiece, “The Narrow Road to the Deep North.” […]
Interview by Victoria James
First published on 1 July, 2012
Click here to read full interview on the Japan Times website
Lesley Downer: Love, war and geisha
Lesley Downer’s seven books range widely in genre and subject. Here she reflects on their inspiration and her experiences writing them.
[…] “Across a Bridge of Dreams” (2012): Just published, Downer’s third novel completes an informal trilogy, with a gripping narrative of star-crossed love between a Satsuma girl and an Aizu boy as the civil-war years reach their dramatic endgame with the rebellion of Saigo Takamori (whom the author veils as “General Kitaoka”).
” ‘Across a Bridge of Dreams’ fell together for me very easily. It had to be North and South, Aizu and Satsuma — it had to be Romeo and Juliet.”
Article by Victoria James
First published on 1 July, 2012