Arriving in Japan twenty-three years ago, on holiday from my job writing for Time magazine in New York, I knew just how I would master the alien and impenetrable island: by treating it as my weekly assignment. I read all the current books on Japan, I mastered all the standard ideas and explanations, I dutifully […]

To write is to step away from the clamor of the world, to take a deep breath and then, slowly and often with shaking heart, to try to make sense of the bombardment of feelings, impressions, and experiences that every day and lifetime brings. The very act of putting them down—getting them out of the […]