My new e book short story, A Geisha for the American Consul, is out today! Loved writing the story of Okichi, the very first of the Japanese women forced to sleep with a western man. To Japanese of those days, the 1850s, westerners were as weird and outlandish and appalling as space aliens. Imagine … … Read more
To Kagoshima in search of a great samurai unbowed Flying into Kagoshima from Tokyo across the volcanic landscape of Kirishima and Ebino Kogen, I feel as if I’m arriving in another country. The air is moist and warm, the light sharper, the sky bluer and the foliage intensely green, sprawling exuberantly over the rugged hills. … Read more
A British author unveils the wonders of writing about the Japanese, and how she has fallen in love with a culture not her own. HER first novel tells of the forbidden love between the Japanese shogun’s last concubine and a rebel warrior. Her second takes place in the exotic pleasure quarters of Japan, where a … Read more
At the end of a busy week of lectures, including a trip to Gateshead, nearly as far north as Hadrian’s Wall. Took a train ride to Birmingham and thought I’d flipped through a worm hole and ended up in Tokyo! Birmingham New Street station is as huge and chaotic and confusing as Shinjuku, like a … Read more
Forthcoming lectures: Wednesday October 17th 7.00 pm (tickets on sale at the door from 6.30) Royal Overseas League, Over-Seas House, Park Place, St James’s Street, London SW1A 1LR tel 0207 408 0214 ext 324 or email culture@rosl.org.uk Website: Royal Over-Seas League Illustrated talk: The New Japan and the Last Samurai *** Friday October 26th 7.00 … Read more
Starting a month of lectures with a talk for the Japan Society North West in Liverpool. An enthusiastic audience with lots of interesting questions. I spoke on The New Japan and the Last Samurai, the real life background to Across a Bridge of Dreams – the extraordinary modernisation of Japan in the mid nineteenth century … Read more
Forthcoming lectures: Saturday September 29th 2.00pm Japan Society North West, The Quaker Meeting House, 22 School Lane, Liverpool L1 3BT www.JSNW.org.uk Illustrated talk: The New Japan and the Last Samurai *** Monday October 8th 6.30pm Gateshead Japan Festival Gateshead Central Library tickets £5 from gateshead.gov.uk Illustrated talk: Japan: Geishas and Courtesans *** Thursday October 11th … Read more
Lesley Downer on Across a Bridge of Dreams August 1, 2012 I’ve always wanted to do a Japanese Romeo and Juliet and the story behind the film The Last Samurai (starring Tom Cruise) fitted perfectly. In my last two novels, The Last Concubine and The Courtesan and the Samurai, I wrote about the civil war … Read more
Forthcoming lectures: Saturday September 29th 2.00pm Japan Society North West, The Quaker Meeting House, 22 School Lane, Liverpool L1 3BT www.JSNW.org.uk Illustrated talk: The New Japan and the Last Samurai *** Monday October 8th 6.30pm Gateshead Japan Festival Gateshead Central Library tickets £5 from gateshead.gov.uk Illustrated talk: Japan: Geishas and Courtesans *** Thursday October 11th … Read more
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 … Read more