The Rainbow World: Japan in Essays and Translations - Softcover

Watson, Burton

4

11 ratings by Goodreads

9780913089064: The Rainbow World: Japan in Essays and Translations

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0913089060 ISBN 13: 9780913089064

Publisher: Broken Moon Press, 1990

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

Nonfiction. In THE RAINBOW WORLD, Burton Watson, internationally respected translator and writer, charms us with his experiences as a student of East Asian culture and longtime resident of Japan. These essays, written over many years, reflect the changes that have taken place in postwar Japan and suggest both the pleasures and trials experienced by foreigners living there. Taken as a whole, this collection is a candid and warm picture of the Japanese people, presented with humor and lightness of touch.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

Language Notes:

Text: English, Japanese

From Library Journal:

Watson, well known as a translator of Chinese and Japanese poetry and a former professor of Chinese at Columbia, here offers 13 personal essays covering various aspects of his life in Japan, from his first arrival in that country in 1945 as a young sailor in the U.S. Navy through his years of graduate study at Kyoto University in the early 1950s to his period of permanent residence there since 1973. The essays offer a variety of insights into Japanese life and culture, with a special emphasis on Zen meditation, which the author has both studied and practiced. Watson is a well-informed and sensitive observer, whose prose carries with it a strong sense of the poetry which he has devoted so much of his life to translating. The book, which concludes with a number of his recent translations, is a work to be read slowly and savored both for its cultural insights and the beauty of its writing. Generally recommended. See also William Bohnaker's The Hollow Doll , reviewed in this issue, p. 204.--Ed.
- Scott Wright, Coll. of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minn.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.