Japanese Journeys: Writings and Recollections - Tapa dura

Geoffrey Bownas, widely known for his writings, translations, broadcasts and commentaries relating to Japan, and an eminent Japanese Studies scholar, has at last completed a memoir. It is a historical record of some significance tracking Japan's post-war history from abject poverty to unimaginable prosperity as the world's second largest economy, and the `lost' post-bubble years.

Geoffrey Bownas was born in Yorkshire in 1923. He introduced the teaching of Japanese in Oxford in 1954, and in 1966 became Sheffield University's Founding Professor of Japanese Studies. His publications include The Penguin Book of Japanese Verse (1964,1998) with Anthony Thwaite, New Writing in Japan (1972), an anthology with Mishima Yukio, Business in Japan (1974,1980) with Paul Norbury, Japan and the New Europe (1991) and Doing Business with the Japanese (2003) with David Powers and Christopher Hood. He continues to be active - writing, lecturing and fostering Anglo-Japanese relations, for which he was awarded the Order of the Sacred Treasure (1999) and the CBE (2003).