Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Frederik L. Schodt awarded The Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette


Stone Bridge author Frederik L. Schodt (The Astro Boy Essays, Dreamland Japan, Native American in the Land of the Shogun, America and the Four Japans, Manga! Manga!, The Four Immigrants Manga) has been awarded the prestigious Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette by the Japanese Government for his contribution "to the introduction and promotion of Japanese contemporary popular culture in the United States of America." The announcement includes a list of Schodt's numerous accomplishments. This is a spectacular honor, and we are grateful for the recognition!

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Eve Kushner and Crazy for Kanji at Nikkei Matsuri in San Jose this weekend!

Eve Kushner, author of the newly released, super-fun book Crazy for Kanji (and the blogger behind Kanji Curiosity) will be at Nikkei Matsuri in San Jose Japantown this Sunday, April 26th, signing books and chatting about the mysteries of kanji. If you haven't bought your copy yet, don't worry--books will be available for sale, and for now you can check out these sample pages. Eve will be in the info booth all day. See you there!

Thanks to the San Francisco Chronicle for listing the event.

Wednesday, April 01, 2009

Donald Richie in Berkeley, April 21st

We couldn't be more excited to announce this upcoming event with Donald in Berkeley! Don't miss it!

Tuesday, April 21
A Life in Japanese Film:
DONALD RICHIE in conversation with TOM LUDDY
7:30 PM at First Congregational Church of Berkeley (2345 Channing Way at Dana)
$10 ($5 students) at the door; co-sponsored by The Booksmith (they'll be selling books)
http://berkeleyarts.org/

Praised by critics from Susan Sontag to Tom Wolfe, Donald Richie is the foremost writer on Japanese culture in English. Born in Ohio in 1924, he has lived in Japan since 1947, except for time at Columbia University in the early 1950s and as curator of film at New York's Museum of Modern Art in 1968–73. The author of some thirty books and dozens of essays, Richie is especially well known for his instrumental role in introducing Japanese film to the West and for his travel memoir The Inland Sea, which was adapted into a popular PBS documentary. In addition to The Inland Sea, his books published by Berkeley-based Stone Bridge Press include Travels in the East, A Tractate on Japanese Aesthetics, The Donald Richie Reader, and The Japan Journals. He recently wrote the forewords to A Critical Handbook of Japanese Film Directors by Alexander Jacoby, and Waiting on the Weather: Making Movies with Akira Kurosawa by Teruyo Nogami.

Richie is also an experimental filmmaker. In 1988, he was invited to be the first guest director at the Telluride Film Festival. At this special evening of recollection and conversation, Richie will discuss Japan and his insights into Japanese culture and especially Japanese film with Tom Luddy, co-founder and current co-director of the Telluride Film Festival and an executive and film producer with American Zoetrope.