May 21st – May 23rd Madrid tour for La Ultima Concubina (the Spanish edition of The Last Concubine). May 22nd 7 pm Casa Asia Madrid, Auditorio Tagore, Palacio Miraflores, Carrera de San Jeronimo, 15.28014, Madrid entry free La Ultima Concubina – illustrated lecture Download event details Saturday June 7th 3 – 4.30 pm College of … Read more
Thursday April 24th 6 pm Kinokuniya bookstore, 1071 Avenue of the Americas, New York, USA tel +1 212-869-1700 Illustrated talk on Madame Sadayakko/Madamu Sadayakko May 21st – May 23rd Barcelona tour for La Ultima Concubina (the Spanish edition of The Last Concubine). Details to follow. Saturday June 7th 3 – 4.30 pm College of Art, … Read more
Thursday April 3rd 4.30 pm Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival Christ Church College, Oxford www.SundayTimes-OxfordLiteraryFestival.co.uk Event with Ellis Avery (author of The Teahouse Fire, published by Vintage) Thursday April 24th 6 pm Kinokuniya bookstore, 1071 Avenue of the Americas, New York, USA tel +1 212-869-1700 Illustrated talk on Madame Sadayakko/Madamu Sadayakko Saturday June 7th Ekota … Read more
Thursday March 27th 7.30 pm Japan Society Southern Counties Physic Garden Hall, Petersfield, Hampshire For further details please visit: www.jssc.org.uk Illustrated lecture on The Last Concubine: Secrets of the Women’s Palace
Wednesday March 19th 6.45 pm Asia House 63 New Cavendish Street, London www.AsiaHouse.org Illustrated lecture on The Last Concubine: Secrets of the Women’s Palace This is a joint lecture with the Japan Society and Asia House. See also http://www.japansociety.org.uk/events/080319_combined_lecture.html Asia House members and concessions £5, Non-members £8
Lesley met readers and signed books at the book launch for The Last Concubine on March 5th at the Royal Over-Seas League. She also gave a lecture and there was a sword fighting display with samurai swords. Some photos of the event:
The word geisha means ‘arts person’ – gei is ‘art or arts’, sha is ‘person’. Geisha are performers who spend five years – as long as a university course – learning to sing, dance, play musical instruments, act and make charming conversation. They are as strictly trained as ballerinas in the west. But they are … Read more
One bitter December day in 1868, 3000 Japanese warriors sailed into Hakodate Bay, on the tip of the northern island of Ezo (now Hokkaido), close to the Japanese mainland. Their ambition was to defeat the imperial forces and set up a republic loyal to the deposed shogun. But when spring came the imperial government sent … Read more
Ieyasu (1543-1616), the first shogun. A great warrior, he defeated his rival warlords at the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600 and brought all Japan under his rule. Credited with bringing peace, unity and stability, he made Edo his capital, built Edo Castle and developed the city. He employed the British seafarer William Adams to build … Read more
November 1861. Sunlight glitters on the lances and pikes of hundreds of attendants and guards, as a procession winds slowly along a mountain road in central Japan. In all, there are 20,000 people – lords and ladies in palanquins, warriors on horseback and on foot, officials, ladies-in-waiting, maids and maids of maids. Then come shoe … Read more