Why Should Americans Read Japanese Literature?
A Public Lecture by Thomas Rimer

Many Americans are unfamiliar with the riches of Japanese literature - a tradition of letters, theater and poetry with a history that extends over a thousand years. From Murasaki Shikibu's famous The Tale Genji, to the Haiku Poet Matsuo Masho's Narrow Road to the Deep North, to the work of modern Japanese novelists like Yukio Mishima, Tanizaki Junichiro, and, most recently, Haruki Murakami, Japanese literature offers an aesthetical and intellectual adventure that offers a dramtically distinctive vision of human possibilities. Thomas Rimer, who holds joint appointments in the Departments of History of Art and Architecture and Theatre Arts at the University of Pittsburgh, is one of America's premier scholars of Japanese literature and theater. He has published numerous works in this field including most recently, (with Marlene J. Mayo) War, Occupation, and Creativity: Japan and East Asia 1920-1960 (2001), A Reader's Guide to Japanese Literature, (1999), and a translation of Senda Akihiko, Voyage of Modern Japanese Theatre (1997). Among his numerous awards is the Order of the Sacred Treasure, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon, from the Consul General of Japan, December 1997. Thomas Rimer professor of Japanese Literature, Theater, and Art, at the University of Pittsburgh gave a presentation on why Americans should read Japanese literature.

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