Over at salon they’ve launched a series of articles under the grand title of “The Literary Guide to the World”. Each article in the series features a specific location along with a select few of its household authors, novelists and poets. Here you have it for Japan, though I have to say I’m less than impressed with Ms. Mori’s selection. As immensely moving, and accessible, as Kazuo Ishiguro’s works are, I find it patently absurd that Ms. Mori chose someone who can barely speak (much less write) Japanese as our literary icon in lieu of other brilliant, native writers: what about Tanizaki, or Kawabata, or Soseki? Nor can I fathom why a comparative nobody like Yuko Tsushima is featured; if for the sake of pc Ms. Mori had to introduce a female author, she could easily have pointed to the works of Ichiyo Higuchi or Akiko Yosano, to name but two acclaimed writers.
