| Description |
xi, 274 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm |
|
regular print |
| Series |
Monash Asia series |
|
Monash Asia series.
|
| Contents |
Introduction : 'the first foreigner on the Japanese boards' -- In the beginning -- Old Japan : new Japan -- The move to Tokyo -- A novice on the stage -- The activist years, 1878-1886 -- From English teacher to rakugoka -- In the golden age of the narrators -- Adapting European sensation fiction -- Sensation fiction as modernity -- Adapting Dickens : dystopia and modern life -- Face creams and tooth powder -- Narrating the Meiji woman -- Learning from the great Danjūrō -- A question of identity : the 'imported Japanese' -- The uncertain years, 1895-1900 -- Saved by new technology -- The end of an era, 1908 -- No different from a Japanese |
| Summary |
"Unique among foreigners in nineteenth-century Japan, Australian-born professional storyteller (rakugoka) Henry Black (1858-1923) enthralled audiences with his adaptations of novels by Charles Dickens, Mary Braddon and Fortuné de Boisgobey. These tales, later produced as books, brought notions of European modernity to many ordinary Japanese. Black also acted kabuki roles, managed an orchestra, performed magic and hypnotism, lived with his Japanese male lover, drank heavily, and practised tea ceremony. His voice was recorded for the London Gramophone Company on the first disc-shaped recordings made in Japan. In the 1870s Black had joined the pro-democracy movement, promoting equal rights and an elected assembly. His later affiliation with the San'yū guild of storytellers, under the professional name of Kairakutei Burakku, enabled him to promote the movement's aims through his stories. He became a naturalised Japanese, and was shunned by his own family. This is the first full-length English-language account of Henry Black. Translating Black's narrated adaptations and drawing on newspapers and diary entries, Ian McArthur demonstrates Black's individual contribution to the modernisation of Meiji-era (1868-1912) Japan"--Publisher's description |
| Analysis |
Australian |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 259-268) and index |
| Subject |
Kairakutei, Burakku, 1858-1923.
|
|
Kabuki -- Biography.
|
|
Rakugo -- Biography.
|
|
Storytellers -- Australia -- Biography.
|
|
Storytellers -- Japan -- Biography.
|
| SUBJECT |
Japan -- History -- Meiji period, 1868-1912.
http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85069489
|
|
Japan -- Social life and customs -- 1868-1912. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85069583
|
|
Japan -- Social life and customs -- 1912-1945. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85069585
|
| Genre/Form |
Biographies.
|
| LC no. |
2013443641 |
| ISBN |
1921867507 (paperback) |
|
9781921867507 (paperback) |
|
