Stranger in the Shogun's City: A Woman’s Life in Nineteenth-Century Japan ( UK)
Publisher, Vintage
Publication Date,
Format, Paperback
Weight, 286 g
No. of Pages, 352
Shelf: Non-Fiction Books / Humanities & Biography / Asian History & Politics
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Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize 2020, a vivid work of history that explores the life of an unconventional woman in Edo - now known as Tokyo - and a portrait of a great city on the brink of momentous change
'Compelling... Deeply absorbing' Guardian
The daughter of a Buddhist priest, Tsuneno was born in 1804 in a village in Japan's snow country and was expected to lead a life much like her mother's. Instead - after three divorces and with a temperament much too strong-willed for her family's approval - she ran away to follow her own path in Edo, the city we now call Tokyo.
Stranger in the Shogun's City is a rare, captivating portrait of one woman as she endeavours to recreate herself and her life, and provides a window into the drama and excitement of Japan at a pivotal moment in history.
'Marvellous... Stanley builds up a picture of Tsuneno's world, immersing us in an experience akin to time travel' TLS
* Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography 2020 *
* Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Biography 2021 *
* Winner of the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography *
Amy Stanley is a professor in the History Department at Northwestern University. She can often be found lecturing about global history, but she is most at home in early modern Japan, specifically in the great city of Edo (now Tokyo). Like many social historians, she is happiest when reading other people's correspondence and perusing shopping lists from 200 years ago. She knows a lot about samurai, and she can tell you all about the condition of the toilets in Edo Castle, though you probably don't want to know. When she's not dwelling in the nineteenth century, she is in Evanston, IL, with her husband, two little boys, and a mutt who may actually be a Catahoula Leopard Dog.
- Dimensions : 5.04 x 0.91 x 7.87 inches