In Harmony with all Creation: Miyazawa Kenji by Roger Pulvers

Date: Wednesday, 4th March 2009 6.45pm
Venue: The Japan Foundation, Russell Square House, 10-12 Russell Square, London, WC1B 5EH

We are delighted to invite members to a special lecture by Roger Pulvers on Miyazawa Kenji, who is increasingly being viewed in Japan as that country’s greatest modern poet. His “Strong in the Rain” (Ame ni mo makezu) is the most memorized and revered poem of the 20th century. Author, playwright, theatre director and translator, Roger Pulvers, who received the prestigious Miyazawa Kenji Prize in 2008, will speak about the ideas and vision of Miyazawa Kenji and read from his collection of translations, “Strong in the Rain,” recently published in the UK by Bloodaxe Books.Roger has published 35 books in Japanese and English, including novels such as “The Dream of Lafcadio Hearn” and “General Yamashita’s Treasure” and most recently “The Honey and the Fires” (ABC Books, Australia), a collection of bible stories without God. He has also published his autobiography in Japan, “The Unmaking of an American.”In 2007, his translation/adaptation of Nikolai Gogol’s “The Government Inspector” played for a month at the Sydney Opera House.

In 2006 his play “Kawaramachi Monogatari,” written in Japanese, was produced in Tokyo and toured, with English surtitles, to Sydney and Adelaide.

Roger’s translations from Japanese, Russian and Polish are widely published; he writes a weekly column, Counterpoint, for the Japan Times; and presently is Head of the Center for the Study of World Civilizations at Tokyo Institute of Technology. Roger was assistant director to Oshima Nagisa on the film, “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence,” and last year co-wrote, with director Koizumi Takashi, the screenplay for “Ashita e no Yuigon,” titled “Best Wishes for Tomorrow” in English.

Please use the booking form in this booklet to reserve your place, or contact the Japan Society office on tel: 020 7828 6330 or email: events@japansociety.org.uk