Rediscovering Lafcadio Hearn

Born in 1931, Sukehiro Hirakawa is a doyen of intercultural relations and Professor Emeritus at Tokyo University. Over his long academic career, he has taught in Japan, France, North America, China and Taiwan, and famously, is the Japanese translator of Dante’s Divine Comedy. Among his extensive writings, is an important contribution to the Cambridge History of Japan (Vol. 5, 1989), analysing the Western impact and the Japanese response. Most recently in English, he has published Japan’s Love-Hate Relationship with the West (2005). This current volume on Lafcadio Hearn complements his earlier work Rediscovering Lafcadio Hearn (1997).

Preface; 1. Rediscovering Lafcadio Hearn; 2. Hearn and Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation; 3. Lafcadio Hearn: Between Britain and Japan; 4. Lafcadio Hearn and the Fin de Siecle; 5. Entering Island Cultures: Synge, Hearn and Irish Exotic; 6. W.B. Yeats and Lafcadio Hearn: Negotiating with Ghosts; 7. Lafcadio Hearn and Ushaw College; 8. Hearn and the Gastronomic Grotesque; 9. Lafcadio Hearn’s Youma: Self as Outsider; 10. Travel Sketches of Lafcadio Hearn; 11. Hearn’s ‘Yuki-Onna’ and Baudelaire’s ‘Les Bienfaits de la Lune’; 12. Lafcadio Hearn: Japan’s Problematic Interpreter; 13. The Western Approach to Shinto: Lafcadio Hearn, Bruno Taut and Andre Malraux; 14. Lafcadio Hearn’s Interpretation of Japan; Notes and References; List of Contributors; Index