Download or read book The Perfumed Sleeve written by Laura Joh Rowland and published by Minotaur Books. This book was released on 2007-04-01 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Perfumed Sleeve is the ninth book in Laura Joh Rowland's mystery series set in feudal Japan featuring Sano Ichiro. November 1694. The streets of Edo are erupting in violence as two factions struggle for control over the ruling Tokugawa regime. One is led by the shogun's cousin, Lord Matsudaira, and the other by the shogun's second-in-command, Chamberlain Yanagisawa. Each side pressures Sano Ichiro, the shogun's most honorable investigator, to join its ranks. When one of the shogun's most trusted advisers is found dead, Sano is forced to honor a posthumous request for a murder investigation. Senior Elder Makino believed that his death would be the result of assassination rather than natural causes. Although he and Sano were bitter enemies, Makino knew that the incorruptible Sano would be duty-bound to oblige his final wish. Under the watchful eyes and thinly veiled threats of both Lord Matsudaira and Chamberlain Yanagisawa, Sano moves with caution. Each is eager to implicate the other in Makino's death. Sano must discover whether the death was indeed murder, and if so, whether it was motivated by politics, love, or sex. The discovery of secret alliances, both romantic and military, further complicates matters. Sano's investigation has barely begun when violent death claims another of the shogun's favorites. With his wife, Reiko, working undercover, Sano and his chief retainer, Hirata, must not only investigate multiple deaths, but stem the tide of an impending civil war.
Download or read book Perfumed Sleeves and Tangled Hair written by Rajyashree Pandey and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2016-01-31 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Perfumed Sleeves and Tangled Hair explores the possibilities and limits of terms such as "body," "woman," "gender," and "agency"—categories that emerged within the context of western philosophical, religious, and feminist debates—to analyze texts that come out of altogether different temporal and cultural contexts. Through close textual readings of a wide range of classical and medieval narratives, from well-known works such as the Tale of Genji to popular Buddhist tales, Rajyashree Pandey offers new ways of understanding such terms within the context of medieval Buddhist knowledge. Pandey suggests that "woman" in medieval Japanese narratives does not constitute a self-evident and distinct category, and that there is little in these works to indicate that the sexed body was the single most important and overarching site of difference between men and women. She argues that the body in classical and medieval texts is not understood as something constituted through flesh, blood, and bones, or as divorced from the mind, and that in the Tale of Genji it becomes intelligible not as an anatomical entity but rather as something apprehended through robes and hair. Pandey provocatively claims that "woman" is a fluid and malleable category, one that often functions as a topos or figural site for staging debates not about real life women, but rather about delusion, attachment, and enlightenment, issues of the utmost importance to the Buddhist medieval world. Pandey's book challenges many of the assumptions that have become commonplace in academic writings on women and Buddhism in medieval Japan. She questions the validity of speaking of Buddhism's misogyny, women's oppression, passivity, or proto-feminism, and points to the anachronistic readings that result when fundamentally modern questions and concerns are transposed unreflexively onto medieval Japanese texts. Taking a broad, interdisciplinary approach, and engaging widely with literature, religious studies, and feminism, while paying close attention to medieval texts and genres, Pandey boldly throws down the gauntlet, challenging some of the sacred cows of contemporary scholarship on medieval Japanese women and Buddhism.
Download or read book The Grand Old Man and the Great Tradition written by Luisa Bienati and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2020-08-06 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1995, on the thirtieth anniversary of Tanizaki Jun’ichirō’s death, Adriana Boscaro organized an international conference in Venice that had an unusally lasting effect on the study of this major Japanese novelist. Thanks to Boscaro’s energetic commitment, Venice became a center for Tanizaki studies that produced two volumes of conference proceedings now considered foundational for all scholarly works on Tanizaki. In the years before and after the Venice Conference, Boscaro and her students published an abundance of works on Tanizaki and translations of his writings, contributing to his literary success in Italy and internationally. The Grand Old Man and the Great Tradition honors Boscaro’s work by collecting nine essays on Tanizaki’s position in relation to the “great tradition” of Japanese classical literature. To open the collection, Edward Seidensticker contributes a provocative essay on literary styles and the task of translating Genji into a modern language. Gaye Rowley and Ibuki Kazuko also consider Tanizaki’s Genji translations, from a completely different point of view, documenting the author’s three separate translation efforts. Aileen Gatten turns to the influence of Heian narrative methods on Tanizaki’s fiction, arguing that his classicism, far from being superficial, “reflects a deep sensitivity to Heian narrative.” Tzevetana Kristeva holds a different perspective on Tanizaki’s classicism, singling out specific aspects of Tanizaki’s eroticism as the basis of comparison. The next two essays emphasize Tanizaki’s experimental engagement with the classical literary genres—Amy V. Heinrich treats the understudied poetry, and Bonaventura Ruperti considers a 1933 essay on performance arts. Taking up cinema, Roberta Novelli focuses on the novel Manji, exploring how it was recast for the screen by Masumura Yasuzō. The volume concludes with two contributions interpreting Tanizaki’s works in the light of Western and Meiji literary traditions: Paul McCarthy considers Nabokovas a point of comparison, and Jacqueline Pigeot conducts a groundbreaking comparison with a novel by Natsume Sōseki.
Download or read book The Private World of Surimono written by Sadako Ohki and published by Yale University Art Gallery. This book was released on 2020-04-07 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A detailed look at a genre that combines virtuoso printmaking techniques, sophisticated imagery, and engaging, playful poetry This beautiful volume celebrates the tradition of the Japanese surimono print. Produced from around 1800 until 1840, during the Edo period, surimono (“printed things” in Japanese) combine intricate artwork and playful poetry, and their small print runs and exclusive audiences allowed for lavish yet subtle surface treatments, such as embossing and gilding. Enjoyed for their learned allusions to literature and contemporary culture, surimono continue to delight and perplex scholars with their visual puns and wordplay. Imagery ranges from delicate, domestic still lifes to spirited vignettes of the natural world, while the poems are often lighthearted takes on the classical Japanese waka form. With its rich text and scholarly apparatus—including names and titles in kanji characters as well as transliterations and translations of the poems on the catalogued prints—The Private World of Surimono serves as a critical resource for scholars of Japanese art and history and offers general readers insight into this rare and innovative print form.
Download or read book Kokinsh written by Laurel Rasplica Rodd and published by Cheng & Tsui. This book was released on 1996 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the first complete translation of the tenth-century work Kokinshu, one of the most important anthologies of the Japanese classical tradition.
Download or read book Encyclopedia of Asian American Literature written by Seiwoong Oh and published by Infobase Learning. This book was released on 2015-04-22 with total page 1292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents a reference on Asian-American literature providing profiles of Asian-American writers and their works.
Download or read book Vampire Hunter D Volume 16 Tyrant s Stars Parts 1 2 written by Hideyuki Kikuchi and published by Dark Horse Comics. This book was released on 2011-04-12 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this chilling adventure, Vampire Hunter D has been dispatched to vanquish the ancient vampiric Noble Count Braujou, guardian of an ancient buried treasure. But when a mysterious object crashes into the earth, destroying half of the northern Frontier, D faces an even more terrifying opponent-the renegade vampire Valcua, the Ultimate Noble! Having been exiled to outer space, Valcua took his entire kingdom of strange and deadly creatures with him, and swore that when the time was right they would return to have their revenge. Unfortunately for D, that time is now . . .
Download or read book Genji Heike written by and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 1994-06-01 with total page 1002 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Tale of Genji and The Tale of the Heike are the two major works of classical Japanese prose. The complete versions of both works are too long to be taught in one term, and this abridgement answers the need for a one-volume edition of both works suitable for use in survey courses in classical Japanese literature or world literature in translation and by the general reader daunted by the complete works. The translator has selected representative portions of the two texts with a view to shaping the abridgments into coherent, aesthetically acceptable wholes. Often called the world's earliest novel, The Tale of Genji, by Murasaki Shikibu, is a poetic evocation of aristocratic life in eleventh-century Japan, a period of brilliant cultural efflorescence. This new translation focuses on important events in the life of its main character, Genji. It traces the full length of Genji's relationship with Murasaki, the deepest and most enduring of his emotional attachments, and contains all or parts of 10 of the 41 chapters in which Genji figures, including the "Broom Tree" chapter, which provides a reprise of the themes of the book. In romanticized but essentially truthful fashion, The Tale of the Heike describes the late twelfth-century political intrigues and battlefield clashes that led to the eclipse of the Kyoto court and the establishment of a military government by the rival Minamotho (Genji) clan. Its underlying theme, the evanescence of worldly things, echoes some of the concerns of the Genji, but its language preserves many traces of oral composition, and its vigor and expansivelness contrast sharply with the pensive, elegant tone of the Genji. The selections of the Heike, about 40 percent of the owrk, are taken from the translator's complete edition, which received great acclaim: "this verison of the Heike is superb and indeed reveals to English-language readers for the first time the full scope, grandeur, and literary richness of the work."—Journal of Asian Studies For both the Genji and the Heike abridgments, the translator has provided introductions, headnote summaries, adn other supplementary maerials designed to help readers follow the sometimes confused story lines and keep the characters straight. The book also includes an appendix, a glossary, a bibliography, and two maps.
Download or read book Vampire Hunter D Omnibus Book Six written by Hideyuki Kikuchi and published by Dark Horse Comics. This book was released on 2024-08-13 with total page 740 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new omnibus collecting volumes sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen of the Vampire Hunter D horror novel series! The hunt continues in the bizarre far future of 12,090 A.D, where the immortal vampire lords who were the only winners of mankind’s nuclear war still oppress the human survivors who have pushed the blood-drinking fiends back to the lawless Frontier. Yet humanity too remains as quick as ever to prey upon itself, and where the law can’t bring safety or justice, the crescent blade of D will—assuming you meet the half-vampire wanderer’s price! Vampire Hunter D Omnibus Book Six collects in full two different novels. Tyrant’s Stars brings a legacy of evil hurtling down when a meteorite that destroys half a sector in the northern Frontier is revealed as none other than the return of Valcua, the undead Ultimate Noble, exiled from our planet millenia ago…and now back to wreak vengeance on the living descendants of those who banished him. Then, in Fortress of the Elder God, there is terror enough on Earth already, as D ventures forth against an ancient abomination that an army of 30,000 vampires once failed to destroy! The Vampire Hunter D Omnibus Book Six collects volumes 16, 17, and 18 in author Hideyuki Kikuchi’s adventure horror series: Tyrant’s Stars Parts One and Two, Tyrant’s Stars Parts Three and Four, and Fortress of the Elder God. Illustrated by Final Fantasy artist Yoshitaka Amano, the legend of D endures!
Download or read book Kokin Wakashu written by Helen Craig McCullough and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 1985 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Stanford University Press classic.
Download or read book Classical Japanese Prose written by Helen Craig McCullough and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 1990 with total page 604 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together in convenient form a rich selection of Japanese prose dating from the ninth to the seventeenth centuries, a period during which the preeminent cultural and aesthetic values were those of the Heian court. It contains 22 works representing all the major indigenous literary forms, either complete or in generous excerpts, and is particularly rich in writing by women and in autobiographical writings. This anthology contains longer selections than the only other available anthology, which was published in the 1950s, and each selection is preceded by an introduction reflecting the most recent scholarship. With three exceptions, all the translations are by the compilers, and almost all of them are published here for the first time. Because of space limitations, the compiler has omitted the two long masterpieces of the age, The Tale of Genji and The Tale of Heike, which deserve to be read in their entirety, and which are available in paperback English translations. The book contains an extensive general introduction, thirteen illustrations, five maps, a glossary, and a selected bibliography of works in English translation.
Download or read book Love and War in the Jewish Quarter written by Dora Levy Mossanen and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-11-08 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A breathtaking journey across Iran where war and superstition, jealousy and betrayal, and passion and loyalty rage behind the impenetrable walls of mansions and the crumbling houses of the Jewish Quarter. Against the tumultuous background of World War II, Dr. Yaran will find himself caught in the thrall of the anti-Semitic Governor General, the most powerful man in the country. Dr. Yaran falls in love with the Governor General’s defiant wife, Velvet, upending not only the life of the doctor’s beloved daughter, but the entire community. In his quest to save everything and everyone he loves, Dr. Yaran will navigate the intersections of magic, science, lust, and treachery. His sole ally is the Governor General’s servant, an exotic eunuch, who will do anything to aid his mistress in her dangerous quest to attain forbidden love.
Download or read book Etruscans written by Morgan Llywelyn and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2010-04-01 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the early days of the Roman Empire, the noble Etruscan civilization in Italy is waning, Vesi, a young Etruscan noblewoman, is violated by a renegade supernatural being. Outcast then from Etruria, Vesi bears Horatrim, a child who carries inexplicable knowledge and grows to manhood in only six years. But a savage Roman attack leaves Vesi unresponsive and Horatrim homeless and vulnerable, and he travels to Rome where his talents confound powerful businessman Propertius, who arranges to adopt Horatrim as a son, changing his name to Horatius. And all the while his demon father is seeking him to kill him, for Horatius is a conduit through which the demon might be found and destroyed. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Download or read book Portal of a Thousand Worlds written by Dave Duncan and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2017-02-14 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The looming threat of a once-in-a-millennium magical event sends nineteenth-century China into violent chaos in this epic alternate-history fantasy. Author of the Seventh Sword series Dave Duncan transports us to Imperial China in an alternate nineteenth century—an Asian epoch not unlike the Boxer Rebellion era—with a spellbinding tale of rebellion, political intrigue, larceny, seduction, shape-shifting, dark magic, and murder. These are troubled years in the Good Land. Ten centuries have passed since the last time the Portal of a Thousand Worlds opened, bringing chaos, upheaval, and radical change to the then-ruling dynasty, and now the mystical gateway is rumored to be on the verge of opening once more. Only the Firstborn—he who has been reincarnated through countless generations and remembers all he has ever learned—knows what the future holds, but he has been imprisoned for refusing to comply with a repressive imperial government’s wishes. Now, those hoping to seize the opportunity for wealth and position are hatching sinister plots. And as the cold-hearted dowager empress closely guards a fateful secret, and a rebel army led by a fanatical zealot gathers strength under the Bamboo Banner, the cataclysm approaches. . . . The recipient of two Aurora Awards and numerous Locus and Endeavour Award nominations, Dave Duncan is an acknowledged master of sword-and-sorcery adventure on par with George R. R. Martin of Game of Thrones fame. A sprawling epic with a colorful cast of royals, thieves, prostitutes, gods, warriors, dragons, assassins, merchants, and mages set against the backdrop of a volatile alternate Asia, Portal of a Thousand Worlds is a magnificent work of invention from one of the premier fantasists of our day.
Download or read book China Quest written by Elizabeth Lane and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2014-04-01 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A woman searches for the passion of a lifetime in nineteenth-century Hong Kong in this epic historical romance from the author of China Song. It is 1861 and Hong Kong is the most exotic, remote place on earth for a westerner like Serena Rose Bellamy Bolton. She is as greedy for love as she is for treasure. For Jason Frobisher, Hong Kong is just another place where he can lose himself and forget the woman who will never be his. Steven Bellamy is there to convert the heathen masses only to find that a change of heart has left his soul up for grabs. Daniel Cheng is the one man who stands to protect his homeland from the meddling hands of these westerners. Little does he know he will not be able to live without the beautiful hand of one of them.
Download or read book Mystery Women Volume Three Revised written by Colleen Barnett and published by Sourcebooks, Inc.. This book was released on 2010-12-31 with total page 1090 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Like other fictional characters, female sleuths may live in the past or the future. They may represent current times with some level of reality or shape their settings to suit an agenda. There are audiences for both realism and escapism in the mystery novel. It is interesting, however, to compare the fictional world of the mystery sleuth with the world in which readers live. Of course, mystery readers do not share one simplistic world. They live in urban, suburban, and rural areas, as do the female heroines in the books they read. They may choose a book because it has a familiar background or because it takes them to places they long to visit. Readers may be rich or poor; young or old; conservative or liberal. So are the heroines. What incredible choices there are today in mystery series! This three-volume encyclopedia of women characters in the mystery novel is like a gigantic menu. Like a menu, the descriptions of the items that are provided are subjective. Volume 3 of Mystery Women as currently updated adds an additional 42 sleuths to the 500 plus who were covered in the initial Volume 3. These are more recently discovered sleuths who were introduced during the period from January 1, 1990 to December 31, 1999. This more than doubles the number of sleuths introduced in the 1980s (298 of whom were covered in Volume 2) and easily exceeded the 347 series (and some outstanding individuals) described in Volume 1, which covered a 130-year period from 1860-1979. It also includes updates on those individuals covered in the first edition; changes in status, short reviews of books published since the first edition through December 31, 2008.
Download or read book The Cloud Pavilion written by Laura Joh Rowland and published by Minotaur Books. This book was released on 2009-10-27 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publishers Weekly calls Laura Joh Rowland's The Cloud Pavilion "One of the best mysteries of the year." In this next installment of the enthralling series, samurai hero Sano Ichiro must mend old family fissures, and bring a culprit who has disgraced his cousin to justice. Japan, 1701. A woman is brutally attacked within a bamboo prison as clouds swirl around her head. Meanwhile, at Edo Castle, samurai detective turned chamberlain Sano Ichiro is suspicious of his old rival, Yanagisawa, who has been oddly cooperative since returning from exile. But just as Yanagisawa's true motives begin to emerge, Sano's estranged uncle comes to him for help: His daughter has disappeared, and he begs Sano and his wife—who once suffered through the kidnapping of their own son—to find her before it is too late.
