Japanese Portraits

These private recollections of longtime Japan resident and Japanese culture expert Donald Richie capture the personalities of the Japanese people with insight and humour.

From the private musings of author Donald Richie comes this extensive collection of brief written "portraits" which capture the personalities of 54 different Japanese people—some famous, some notorious, and some unknown. First written in 1987, Japanese Portraits presents one author's vision of Japanese culture and etiquette through precise, intimate profiles of both the ordinary and extraordinary people that make up the diverse nation.

This collection of individual vignettes is perhaps the first book about the Japanese to view them entirely unhindered by the various theories about them, and about culture in Japan as a whole—depicting them as complicated, simple, inscrutable, and understandable, like anyone else, yet still unique.

In these fifty-four pieces you'll meet some household names—Mishima, Kawabata, Mifune, Kurosawa—and little-known neighbourhood figures: the would-be geisha, the ex-boxer turned gangster, the scheming bar madame, and the old man dying alone. And there are dozens of others, individuals who have in common, besides their Japanese nationality, the fact that they knew the author, and that—fortunately for us—he knew them.

These highly personal reminiscences form one of the most original and deeply felt books on culture in Japan ever to appear.