The private recollections of longtime Japan resident, Donald Richie capture the personalities of certain Japanese people - some famous, some unknown - with insight and humour. Richie, who considers himself a foreigner despite living in Japan for over 53 years, is a keen observer of human nature. In "Japanese Portraits", he provides an elegant and perceptive vision of Japan through precise, intimate portraits of ordinary and extraordinary Japanese people. Portraits include such notable Japanese as acclaimed filmakers Akira Kurowasa and Yasujiro Ozu, famed novelist Yukio Mishima and celebrated actor Toshiro Mifune.

Author Biography

Donald Richie is perhaps best known as the leading Western authority on the Japanese film and has lived in Japan since 1947. Author of the definitive works on Kurosawa and Ozu, his most recent is A Hundred Years of Japanese Film. He also write on other aspects of japan and is the author of thirty books and dozens of essays. Richie is especially well-known for his travel memoir The Inland Sea which has been adapted into a popular PBS documentary. His best-known collection is The Donald Richie Reader, which contains 50 years of his writings on Japan.