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A revealing look at rural lives and lifestyles that have all but disappeared today.
Tsuneichi Miyamoto (1907–1981), a leading Japanese folklore scholar and rural advocate, walked 160,000 kilometers to conduct interviews and capture a dying way of life. This collection of photos, vignettes, and life stories from pre- and postwar rural Japan is the first English translation of his modern Japanese classic. From blowfish to landslides, Miyamoto's stories come to life in Jeffrey Irish's fluid translation.
"Though largely unknown in the West, Miyamoto Tsuneichi (1907-81) was a pioneering figure in the field of Japanese folklore studies, on a par with the legendary Yanagita Kunio. Fishermen, farmers, and itinerant peddlers regaled him with tales of local legends, sex, violence, natural disasters, and folk religion. Translator [Jeffrey] Irish, a resident of a rural Japanese village himself, brings a deft touch to the translation."
—Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries
"Miyamoto's years of walking and listening in the remote farming and fishing communities of Japan put him in touch with the basics. The translation by Jeffrey Irish is excellent. It's our good luck that we get to savor this text now too."
—Gary Snyder
"Miyamoto...captures utterly ordinary folk rituals of everyday life with flair and grace."
—Tokyo Art Beat
"It’s a treasure trove of information about life in Japan just before WWII. This is a keeper for the book shelves as I am sure I will refer back to it often."
—Amy Chavez, Books on Asia
"The past, one sees, really is a foreign country, Miyamoto’s journey into that foreign place, his visits with its forgotten people, exquisitely told and exquisitely translated, is essential."
—Japan Times
"In what Miyamoto sets out to do, he succeeds. He has made the 'forgotten Japanese' eminently memorable."
—Clark Chilson, University of Pittsburgh, in Asian Ethnology.
Tsuneichi Miyamoto (1907-81) was a a leading scholar of Japanese folklore and customs. He walked over 160,000 kilometers through rural Japan, collecting the songs, stories, and images of a dying way of life, and was an advocate of social and economic invigoration of rural Japan.
Jeffrey Irish is a scholar and translator who has long been immersed in life in rural Japan. A contributing editor to the Kyoto Journal, Irish has been a columnist for a Japanese newspaper for seven years and is the author of the Japanese-language books Prewar Kagoshima and Island Life. He was recently elected "mayor" of his 28-person village.