Norma Field was born to a Japanese mother and an American father during the occupation of Japan after WWII. She is the Robert S. Ingersoll Distinguished Service Professor in Japanese studies in the East Asian languages and civilizations department at the University of Chicago. She is the author of The Splendor of Longing in the Tale of Genji and the translator of And Then by Natsume Sōseki.

"Well-researched, well-observed and completely absorbing...an important and necessary book." -- The New York Times Book Review

"Remarkable...a vivid, taut, graceful piece of writing...with enormous power."-- James Fallows, The Atlantic

"Marvelous...Field uncovers a Japan rarely seen or acknowledged by Westerners, a Japan of individual expression, active dissent -- even open rebellion."-- Village Voice Literary Supplement

"Superb...one of the most important books...on Japanese who refuse to conform." -- Ian Buruma, The New York Review of Books

Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Pub date: 1993-03-09

Length: 304 pages