A Japanese Mirror by Ian Buruma

A Japanese Mirror

Heroes and Villains of Japanese Culture

by Ian Buruma

Jonathan Cape, 1984 [First Edition],  b/w photographs, hardcover, dustjacket, ISBN 0224020498

Very Good Condition, some rubbing to edges of book, dustjacket has been 'strengthened' with tape, price-clipped, minor edges and shelfwear to dustjacket (see photographs)

'This is a book which explains more about the Japanese than most Westerners ever discover.  It is about the popular, collective imagination of a people as reflected in the films, comics, plays and books which appeal to the large majority of them.  As such it offers an insight into the raunchy, violent and often morbid side of the Japanese beyond the delicate forms of art with which we are most familiar.  The first half of Ian Buruma's lively, marvelously written book is about women, the second half about men, with a chapter about transvestites in the middle.'