Outsider: The Life and Work of Lafcadio Hearn: The Man Who Introduced Voodoo, Creole Cooking and Japanese Ghosts to the World

by Steve Kemme, Bon Koizumi (Foreword by)

Overview

"I had read a book about Japan by Lafcadio Hearn, and what he wrote about Japanese culture and their theatre aroused my desire to go there." --Charlie Chaplin

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781462924332
Publisher:	Tuttle Publishing
Publication date:	09/12/2023
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	272
File size:	13 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Steve Kemme is president of the Lafcadio Hearn Society/USA and a former reporter for the Cincinnati Enquirer, where Hearn formerly worked. He is a member of the Japan Research Center of Greater Cincinnati and has spoken at Hearn symposiums worldwide.

Bon Koizumi is Lafcadio Hearn's great-grandson. He is a professor at the University of Shimane Junior College and director of the Lafcadio Hearn Memorial Museum in Matsue, which is housed in Hearn's first home in Japan.

Editorial Reviews

"My passion for Japan began with Lafcadio Hearn." —Henry Miller

"Hearn's writing was not only true on the surface but in depth; not only to his conscious thinking but also to the submerged feelings that gave their rhythms to his prose…Long before coming to Japan he had shown an instinct for finding in legends the permanent archetypes of human experience—that is the secret of their power to move us—and he later proved that he knew which tales to choose and which details to emphasize, in exactly the right English." —Malcolm Cowley

"I had read a book about Japan by Lafcadio Hearn, and what he wrote about Japanese culture and their theatre aroused my desire to go there." —Charlie Chaplin

"All nations believed in the rebirth of the soul and had probably empirical evidence like that Lafcadio Hearn found among the Japanese." —William Butler Yeats

"…Steve Kemme's enjoyable new biography […] There has long been a good deal of interest in the indefatigable journeyings of Lafcadio Hearn; and there have been many good biographies of his life before this latest (and very good) one—but there is probably no better time than now to appreciate what his great-grandson calls Hearn's 'philosophy of tolerance' for other people, other cultures and other religious traditions. (In fact, it's possible to argue that Hearn enjoyed most cultural traditions more than he did his own.)" —The Spectator

"The Outsider brings out colorful personality of one of history's great Japanophiles." —The Japan Times

"Aficionados of history and literature should be excited about the new biography of Lafcadio Hearn. […] Kemme ably covers Hearn's entire life with the same level of detail and insight. But this reporter concedes it is gratifying that his biography at last gives the Cincinnati chapter of Hearn's story its full share." —Jeff Suess, The Cincinnati Enquirer

From the Publisher