{"id":4122,"date":"2021-10-04T20:52:12","date_gmt":"2021-10-04T20:52:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/earc\/?p=4122"},"modified":"2021-12-08T21:00:09","modified_gmt":"2021-12-08T21:00:09","slug":"author-talk-amy-stanley-stranger-in-the-shoguns-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/earc\/author-talk-amy-stanley-stranger-in-the-shoguns-city\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Club and Author Talk: Amy Stanley, “Stranger in the Shogun’s City: A Japanese Woman and Her World”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Teachers joined as we explored Amy Stanley\u2019s\u00a0Stranger in the Shogun\u2019s City: A Japanese Woman and Her World<\/em><\/a>, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Biography, winner of the 2020 National Book Critics Circle Award, winner of the PEN\/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography, and shortlisted for the\u00a0Baillie-Gifford prize.<\/p>\n

Participants followed the extraordinary life of Tsuneno as she moved from a rural village to one of the largest cities in the world (Edo\/Tokyo), and then joined EARC seminar leader Tese Wintz Neighbor for an online book club.<\/p>\n

We were thrilled to follow up this book club with a conversation with the author. Professor Stanley discussed how she was able to reconstruct Tsunemi\u2019s life and world by letters, diary entrees and family papers.<\/p>\n

About\u00a0Stranger in the Shogun’s City: A Japanese Woman and Her World<\/em><\/h3>\n

The daughter of a Buddhist priest, Tsuneno was born in a rural Japanese village and was expected to live a traditional life much like her mother\u2019s. But after three divorces\u2014and a temperament much too strong-willed for her family\u2019s approval\u2014she ran away to make a life for herself in one of the largest cities in the world: Edo, a bustling metropolis at its peak.<\/p>\n

With Tsuneno as our guide, we experience the drama and excitement of Edo just prior to the arrival of American Commodore Perry\u2019s fleet, which transformed Japan. During this pivotal moment in Japanese history, Tsuneno bounces from tenement to tenement, marries a masterless samurai, and eventually enters the service of a famous city magistrate. Tsuneno\u2019s life provides a window into 19th-century Japanese culture\u2014and a rare view of an extraordinary woman who sacrificed her family and her reputation to make a new life for herself, in defiance of social conventions.<\/p>\n

Immersive and fascinating,\u00a0Stranger in the Shogun\u2019s City\u00a0<\/i>is a revelatory work of history, layered with rich detail and delivered with beautiful prose, about the life of a woman, a city, and a culture.<\/p>\n

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