Download or read book Daughters of the Samurai A Journey from East to West and Back written by Janice P. Nimura and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2015-05-04 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Seattle Times Best Book of the Year A Buzzfeed Best Nonfiction Book of the Year "Nimura paints history in cinematic strokes and brings a forgotten story to vivid, unforgettable life." —Arthur Golden, author of Memoirs of a Geisha In 1871, five young girls were sent by the Japanese government to the United States. Their mission: learn Western ways and return to help nurture a new generation of enlightened men to lead Japan. Raised in traditional samurai households during the turmoil of civil war, three of these unusual ambassadors—Sutematsu Yamakawa, Shige Nagai, and Ume Tsuda—grew up as typical American schoolgirls. Upon their arrival in San Francisco they became celebrities, their travels and traditional clothing exclaimed over by newspapers across the nation. As they learned English and Western customs, their American friends grew to love them for their high spirits and intellectual brilliance. The passionate relationships they formed reveal an intimate world of cross-cultural fascination and connection. Ten years later, they returned to Japan—a land grown foreign to them—determined to revolutionize women’s education. Based on in-depth archival research in Japan and in the United States, including decades of letters from between the three women and their American host families, Daughters of the Samurai is beautifully, cinematically written, a fascinating lens through which to view an extraordinary historical moment.
Download or read book The Samurai s Daughter written by and published by Puffin. This book was released on 1997 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tokoyo vows to join her father, a samurai nobleman, after he is exiled to a lonely island. But between daughter and father lies a journey fraught with both natural and supernatural dangers--a ship of ghosts, fierce bandits, and an evil sea demon. Johnson's lush paintings illuminate this tale of courage and endurance, retold from a medieval Japanese legend. Full color.
Download or read book Tokoyo the Samurai s Daughter written by Faith Justice and published by . This book was released on 2017-05-28 with total page 122 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An adventurous girl! Most noble-born girls of Tokoyo's age learn to sing, paint, and write poetry. Not Tokoyo. She's the daughter of a samurai in fourteenth century Japan. Tokoyo's father trains her in the martial arts. When he is away, she escapes to the sea where she works with the Ama-a society of women and girls who dive in the deep waters for food and treasure. But disaster strikes her family. Can Tokoyo save her father using the lessons she learned and the skills she mastered to overcome corrupt officials, her own doubts, and a nasty sea demon?
Download or read book The Samurai s Daughter written by Sujata Massey and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2012-05-01 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new crime–thriller full of suspense from Sujata Massey, the acclaimed author of The Bride's Kimono and The Floating Girl. Antiques dealer Rei Shimura is in San Francisco visiting her parents and researching a personal project tracing the story of 100 years of Japanese decorative arts through her own family's experience. Her work is interrupted by the arrival of her boyfriend, lawyer Hugh Glendinning, who is involved in a class action lawsuit on behalf of aged Asian nationals forced to engage in slave labour for Japanese companies during World War II. These two projects suddenly intertwine when one of Hugh's clients is murdered and Rei begins to uncover unsavoury facts about her own family's actions during the war. Rei unravels the truth, finds the killer, and at the same time learns about family ties and loyalty and the universal desire to avoid blame.
Download or read book Daughter of the Sword written by Steve Bein and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-09-03 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the only female detective in Tokyo's most elite police unit, Mariko Oshiro has to fight for every ounce of respect, especially from her new boss. But when he gives her the least promising case possible, the attempted theft of an old samurai sword, it proves more dangerous than anyone on the force could have imagined. Mariko's investigation has put her on a collision course with a curse centuries old and as bloodthirsty as ever. She is only the latest in a long line of warriors and soldiers to confront this power, and even the sword she wields could turn against her.
Download or read book The Samurai s Tale written by Erik Christian Haugaard and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2005 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When the powerful Lord Takeda's soldiers sweep across the countryside, killing and plundering, they spare the boy Taro's life and take him along with them. Taro becomes a servant in the household of the noble Lord Akiyama, where he meets Togan, a cook, who teaches Taro and makes his new life bearable. But when Togan is murdered, Taro's life takes a new direction: He will become a samurai, and redeem the family legacy that has been stolen from him.
Download or read book The Way of the Samurai written by Inazo Nitobe and published by Arcturus Publishing. This book was released on 2017-09-21 with total page 89 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This classic text by Inazo Nitobe defining the moral code of the warrior class or Samurai has had a huge impact both in the West and in Japan itself. Drawing on Japanese traditions such as Shinto and Buddhism, and citing parallels with Western philosophy and literature, Nitobe's text is essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand the culture and morals of Japan.
Download or read book The Samurai of Seville written by John J. Healey and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-06-13 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sumptuous novel inspired by one of history’s most intriguing forgotten chapters—the arrival of Japanese Samurai on the shores of Europe. In 1614, twenty-two Samurai warriors and a group of tradesmen from Japan sailed to Spain, where they initiated one of the most intriguing cultural exchanges in history. They were received with pomp and circumstance, first by King Philip III and later by Pope Paul V. They were the first Japanese to visit Europe and they caused a sensation. They remained for two years and then most of the party returned to Japan; however, six of the Samurai stayed behind, settling in a small fishing village close to Sanlúcar de Barrameda, where their descendants live to this day. Healey imbues this tale of the meeting of East and West with uncommon emotional and intellectual intensity and a rich sense of place. He explores the dueling mentalities of two cultures through a singular romance; the sophisticated, restrained warrior culture of Japan and the baroque sensibilities of Renaissance Spain, dark and obsessed with ethnic cleansing. What one culture lives with absolute normality is experienced as exotic from the outsider’s eye. Everyone is seen as strange at first and then—with growing familiarity—is revealed as being more similar than originally perceived, but with the added value of enduring idiosyncrasies. The story told in this novel is an essential and timeless one about the discoveries and conflicts that arise from the forging of relationships across borders, both geographical and cultural.
Download or read book The Samurai s Daughter written by John J. Healey and published by Arcade. This book was released on 2019-08-06 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A tale of personal discovery, familial obligations, and competing cultural expectations is at the heart of this exciting sequel to The Samurai of Seville. Soledad Maria, called Masako by her father, is a child of two worlds. Born in Seville in the seventeenth century, she is the daughter of a beloved Spanish lady and a fearsome samurai warrior sent to Spain as a member of one of the most intriguing cultural exchanges in history. After her mother's death, Soledad Maria and her father set out to return to Japan, though a journey across the world can never be without peril. Once they return, even their position in her father’s home is not secure. As they try to stay one step ahead of those who would harm them, Soledad Maria finds herself grappling with not only the physical challenges of her many voyages, but with who she is, which legacy to claim—that of a proper Spanish lady or of a samurai—and which world she can really call home. The Samurai's Daughter is an essential and timeless story of accepting ourselves and finding our place in the world.
Download or read book Life as a Samurai written by Matt Doeden and published by Capstone. This book was released on 2010-07 with total page 58 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: You choose: Warriors. The life of a warrior is full of danger, decision-making and glory. Now in our You choose format readers can live it. Each choice could lead to fame, riches or death. You, the reader, decides!
Download or read book The Samurai s Garden written by Gail Tsukiyama and published by St. Martin's Griffin. This book was released on 2008-06-24 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The daughter of a Chinese mother and a Japanese father, Gail Tsukiyama's The Samurai's Garden uses the Japanese invasion of China during the late 1930s as a somber backdrop for this extraordinary story. A 20-year-old Chinese painter named Stephen is sent to his family's summer home in a Japanese coastal village to recover from a bout with tuberculosis. Here he is cared for by Matsu, a reticent housekeeper and a master gardener. Over the course of a remarkable year, Stephen learns Matsu's secret and gains not only physical strength, but also profound spiritual insight. Matsu is a samurai of the soul, a man devoted to doing good and finding beauty in a cruel and arbitrary world, and Stephen is a noble student, learning to appreciate Matsu's generous and nurturing way of life and to love Matsu's soulmate, gentle Sachi, a woman afflicted with leprosy.
Download or read book Stranger in the Shogun s City written by Amy Stanley and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2020-07-14 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Biography* *Winner of the 2020 National Book Critics Circle Award* *Winner of the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography* A “captivating” (The Washington Post) work of history that explores the life of an unconventional woman during the first half of the 19th century in Edo—the city that would become Tokyo—and a portrait of a city on the brink of a momentous encounter with the West. The daughter of a Buddhist priest, Tsuneno was born in a rural Japanese village and was expected to live a traditional life much like her mother’s. But after three divorces—and a temperament much too strong-willed for her family’s approval—she ran away to make a life for herself in one of the largest cities in the world: Edo, a bustling metropolis at its peak. With Tsuneno as our guide, we experience the drama and excitement of Edo just prior to the arrival of American Commodore Perry’s fleet, which transformed Japan. During this pivotal moment in Japanese history, Tsuneno bounces from tenement to tenement, marries a masterless samurai, and eventually enters the service of a famous city magistrate. Tsuneno’s life provides a window into 19th-century Japanese culture—and a rare view of an extraordinary woman who sacrificed her family and her reputation to make a new life for herself, in defiance of social conventions. “A compelling story, traced with meticulous detail and told with exquisite sympathy” (The Wall Street Journal), Stranger in the Shogun’s City is “a vivid, polyphonic portrait of life in 19th-century Japan [that] evokes the Shogun era with panache and insight” (National Review of Books).
Download or read book The Shogun s Daughter written by Laura Joh Rowland and published by Minotaur Books. This book was released on 2013-09-17 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Laura Joh Rowland's thrilling series set in Feudal Japan is as gripping and entertaining as ever with The Shogun's Daughter. Japan, 1704. In an elegant mansion a young woman named Tsuruhime lies on her deathbed, attended by her nurse. Smallpox pustules cover her face. Incense burns, to banish the evil spirits of disease. After Tsuruhime takes her last breath, the old woman watching from the doorway says, "Who's going to tell the Shogun his daughter is dead?" The death of the Shogun's daughter has immediate consequences on his regime. There will be no grandchild to leave the kingdom. Faced with his own mortality and beset by troubles caused by the recent earthquake, he names as his heir Yoshisato, the seventeen-year-old son he only recently discovered was his. Until five months ago, Yoshisato was raised as the illegitimate son of Yanagisawa, the shogun's favorite advisor. Yanagisawa is also the longtime enemy of Sano Ichiro. Sano doubts that Yoshisato is really the Shogun's son, believing it's more likely a power-play by Yanagisawa. When Sano learns that Tsuruhime's death may have been a murder, he sets off on a dangerous investigation that leads to more death and destruction as he struggles to keep his pregnant wife, Reiko, and his son safe. Instead, he and his family become the accused. And this time, they may not survive the day.
Download or read book The Pillow Book Of The Flower Samurai written by Barbara Lazar and published by Headline. This book was released on 2013-06-04 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: I am Kozaisho: Fifth daughter, Woman-For-Play, teller of stories, lover, wife and Flower Samurai. In the rich, dazzling, brutal world of twelfth century Japan, one young girl begins her epic journey, from the warmth of family to the Village of Outcasts. Marked out by an auspicious omen, she is trained in the ancient warrior arts of the samurai. But it is through the power of storytelling that she learns to fight her fate, twisting her life onto a path even she could not have imagined...
Download or read book Blade of the Samurai written by Susan Spann and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2014-07-15 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Master ninja Hiro Hattori is trying to sleep when he has an unexpected visit from his friend Kazu, a fellow shinobi and member of the same ninja clan working undercover at the shogunate. Kazu says that Saburo, the Shogun's cousin, has been stabbed to death within the walls of the Shogun's palace with Kazu's dagger, and that though he is innocent, he fears he will be blamed for the murder. He begs Hiro's help in escaping the city. But before he can flee, Hiro and Father Mateo, the Jesuit priest under Hiro's protection, are summoned to the palace to aid in the investigation. There they learn of a plot to assassinate the Shogun and overthrow the ruling Ashikaga clan. With Lord Oda, a rival warlord, scheduled to arrive in Kyoto soon and the murderer poised to strike again, Hiro must use his assassin's skills to reveal the killer's identity and protect the Shogun. Kazu, trapped in the city, still will not admit where he was at the time of the murder, and this makes Hiro doubt his innocence. Other suspects include the maid who found the body, Saburo's wife, and the stable master. Unfortunately, the Shogun demands the murder solved before Lord Oda arrives, and if the murderer can't be brought to justice, Hiro and Father Mateo may have to die in his place. Blade of the Samurai is a complex mystery that will transport readers into 16th century Japan for a thrilling and unforgettable adventure"--
Download or read book Noguchi the Samurai written by Burt Konzak and published by Fitzhenry & Whiteside. This book was released on 1994 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On a ferry plying the waters off the coast of Japan, the bully Noguchi is terrorizing his fellow passengers. When he drops his pipe into the sea, his mood becomes even fiercer. The passengers, afraid for their lives, turn to an elderly samurai, Michihara, to intervene and save them from Noguchi's wrath. Using the best weapon of all, his wits, Michihara is able to defeat the young warrior and teach him the true meaning of being a samurai. For centuries, stories like Noguchi the Samurai have helped students of Karate to understand that ancient and dignified martial art. This retelling will appeal to anyone who is interested in Karate or has ever had to ward off a bully.
Download or read book Samurai William written by Giles Milton and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2003-01-18 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An eye-opening account of the first encounter between England and Japan, by the acclaimed author of Nathaniel's Nutmeg In 1611, the merchants of London's East India Company received a mysterious letter from Japan, written several years previously by a marooned English mariner named William Adams. Foreigners had been denied access to Japan for centuries, yet Adams had been living in this unknown land for years. He had risen to the highest levels in the ruling shogun's court, taken a Japanese name, and was now offering his services as adviser and interpreter. Seven adventurers were sent to Japan with orders to find and befriend Adams, in the belief that he held the key to exploiting the opulent riches of this forbidden land. Their arrival was to prove a momentous event in the history of Japan and the shogun suddenly found himself facing a stark choice: to expel the foreigners and continue with his policy of isolation, or to open his country to the world. For more than a decade the English, helped by Adams, were to attempt trade with the shogun, but confounded by a culture so different from their own, and hounded by scheming Jesuit monks and fearsome Dutch assassins, they found themselves in a desperate battle for their lives. Samurai William is the fascinating story of a clash of two cultures, and of the enormous impact one Westerner had on the opening of the East.
