Roger Pulvers

THE YEAR 2020 was the year the world turned inward. We may have stayed at home, but this was a time to look deeply inside ourselves to find connections that we carry in us with all people all around the world. ACCLAIMED AUTHOR and translator Roger Pulvers recorded a hundred readings for his YouTube channel "Roger Pulvers Reads." This became a popular site for people from many countries to connect with each other through the profound beauty and consummate wisdom of poetry. THESE ARE ICONIC poems in their home countries-Russia, Poland, Japan-each appearing here in a brilliantly unique voice. Most of these poems were read on the YouTube channel, but there are newly translated ones as well, from the prophetic warning of revolution by the Russian poet Nikolai Gumilev, to the droll and sagacious haiku of Kobayashi Issa; from the satirical black humor of the Polish poet Julian Tuwim to the erotic tanka of the feminist poet Yosano Akiko. ALL POETS are given insightful biographical background commentary on their art, life and times; and many of the poems come with clear explanatory notes. The poets appearing here describe not only affairs of the heart but also upheaval and revolution, exile and betrayal, and encounters and events that are often brimming with hilarity and wit, proving without a doubt that poetry is the lifeblood of a nation." May these poems bring you a bit of inspiration," writes Roger Pulvers in his Introduction, "a good deal of consolation and much much joy." CONTENTS: Introductions, POEMS FROM RUSSIAN: Nikolai Gumilev, Boris Pasternak, Anna Akhmatova, Osip Mandelstam, Alexander Blok, Sergei Esenin, Marina Tsvetaeva, Valery Bryusov, Konstantin Balmont, Andrei Bely, Vladislav Khodasevich, Alexander Pushkin, Fyodor Tyutchev, Ivan Turgenev, Nikolai Nekrasov, Ivan Krylov, POEMS FROM POLISH: Boleslaw Leśmian, Konstanty Ildefons Galczyński, Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska, Julian Tuwim, Adam Mickiewicz, Maria Konopnicka, Tadeusz Borowski, POEMS FROM JAPANESE: Yosano Akiko, Terayama Shuji, Nakahara Chuya, Miki Rofu, Hayashi Fumiko, Okamoto Kanoko, Sagawa Chika, Masaoka Shiki, Kobayashi Issa, Baisao, Takamura Kotaro, Miyazawa Kenji, A POEM OF MY OWN, INDEX OF POEMS

Roger Pulvers has been writing fiction set in Japan for over fifty years. Now, for the first time, a collection of his very best short stories has been brought together in a single volume. Some of these stories, like the one that gives the collection its title, The Charter tells the story of a man who has chartered a boat on Tokyo's Sumida River. He is celebrating his eightieth birthday and has invited his entire family to celebrate with him. But, curiously, it is a little girl engaging with him on the deck who comes to symbolize the real love that seems absent in his 'loved ones'. The two make a promise to each other there and then that represents another kind of 'charter'. The great variety of characters encountered in these poignant and often highly humourous stories include a little boy who, it seems, will stop at nothing to get his feuding parents together again; a young woman who reconnects with an ancestor and finds love in the process; a beautiful Japanese singer who goes to Las Vegas to make it big time; a Japanese salaryman who, on an impulse, travels to Holland in search of Vermeer and loses himself instead; a na ve American who falls for a young Japanese woman, only to have to witness her modelling in the nude for a dissolute artist he despises; two young women - one Japanese, the other Indonesian - who discover that they have the same father ... and other colourful characters that give great insight into contemporary Japanese life.

Originally published in Japanese under the title If There Were No Japan: A Cultural Memoir, this book was acclaimed for its insights into Japanese life, bringing together aspects of history, culture and everyday life to paint an original and revealing portrait of the Japanese people and the pressing issues facing them today. During his decades of passionate engagement with Japan, Pulvers became close friends with many of the most gifted writers, artists, filmmakers, actors and journalists in the country. Whether delving into ancient traditions or providing vivid accounts of contemporary customs, analyzing characters in Japanese fiction or recounting personal encounters with individuals, the author illuminates those inventive elements that have made Japanese culture and design the envy of the world--and that signal a way forward through the twenty-first century. "Roger Pulvers's life reads like an adventure story. His recollections of life in Japan in the 1960s are bound to become a part of Japan's national heritage."-Ryuichi Sakamoto, composer and musician "This book is a delight. Few Japanese intellectuals have absorbed Japanese culture to the extent that Pulvers has. If there were no Pulvers, Japan would be a much less interesting country "-Seigo Matsuoka, author and editor "Roger Pulvers ... is a master at transcending borders. He builds a convincing case for Japan as an indispensable presence on the world stage." -Mitsuyoshi Numano, author and professor at the University of Tokyo "Roger Pulvers delves into and examines values that the Japanese have lost sight of. His notion that there is much diversity in Japan refutes the conventional wisdom with great persuasiveness." -Yoshiharu Fukuhara, Honorary Chairman of Shiseido

Published originally in Australia by ABC Books and HarperCollins, and in Japanese translation by the major publishing house Shueisha, THE HONEY AND THE FIRES is a retelling of some of the most powerful stories from the Bible for our day and age. This new paperback edition contains a story that did not appear in the original publication: "The Story of Adam and Eve - Narrated by a Snake." Roger Pulvers has brilliantly captured the essence of these time-honored tales in often bold and lyrical language that makes this book both timeless and of our time. "Every story is witty, beautifully written and encourages deep thought. Race out and buy this truly beautiful book."--INSIGHTS, magazine of the Uniting Church in Australia"Full of a light and eloquent humor ... Fascinating and profound." --Hisashi Inoue, prize-winning Japanese author"Open-hearted parables that reflect today's world."--Tokyo Shimbun"Extraordinarily fascinating tales that transcend time."--BRIO magazine"Brimming with a gentle gaze on the individual yet having a wide vision ... resoundingly powerful."--SHUKAN ASAHI weekly magazine

"Roger has fearlessly thrown himself into the whirlpool of cross-culturalism. His life reads like an adventure story."--Ryuichi SakamotoThe Unmaking of an American is an engaging and entertaining cross-cultural memoir spanning decades of dramatic history on four continents. Author, playwright, translator, journalist, theater and film director Roger Pulvers explores the nature of memory through life connections created from people and places, both past and present. Born into a Jewish American family in New York and raised in Los Angeles, Roger Pulvers journeyed outside the U. S. for the first time in 1964, when he visited the Soviet Union, returning there the following year and heading to Poland in 1966. In 1967, he moved to Japan, forming a tie to that country that has lasted more than half a century. Pulvers became an Australian citizen in 1976 and has chronicled life--political, social and cultural--in those countries in hundreds of articles and essays, as well as works of fiction." No memory, however trivial and banal, is unimportant if it remains with you; no feeling that was once felt cannot be retrieved when you feel the absolute need to access it. And it is our memories that order the chaotic conglomeration of experience and sentiment that make up our selves.""I drifted from the United States to Eastern Europe to Japan and then to Australia. This movement in itself was no different from that of hundreds of millions of people who have migrated from one country to another. The only anomalous feature of my choices is that not many people leave the "land of golden opportunity" for good; not many choose to opt out of their tie to "the home of the free.""You are taking a step. But it is not leading you in a straight line. Each step reminds you that your life is taking a turn, however imperceptible, and each turn represents a moment in the present where the future can be glimpsed simultaneously. What is the direction of these stepping-stones? Where are they leading you? It is impossible to tell. They lead nowhere, and they seem to come back to the place you were before."

Liv Grimstad is riding on a suburban train in Sydney, Australia in 1975 when she takes notice of the old man sitting opposite her. Though his features are different, she recognizes that man by the piercing look in his cornflower-blue eyes. She is convinced it is Donald Meissner, the man who has haunted her memory since they both worked at the German Embassy in Tokyo during the war. He was the beast who tormented and persecuted people, sending them into the hands of the Japanese Military Police. She does not confront him at first but rather sets out on a journey of detective work to uncover this man. LIV is a personal detective story and thrilling historical mystery set in Australia in 1975 and Tokyo in 1945. But it tells a universal tale about how the past bears on our present ... and future.