A Tokyo Romance

A triumphal narrative... a winning mix of nostalgic bravado and judicious self-deprecation.... luscious and precise... In a time when the country's public image abroad consisted largely of manufacturing and geisha girls he located an avant-garde culture and entered it fully, unafraid of drunken excess then and unafraid of recalling it now. -- Andrew Solomon * New York Times Book Review *
Buruma is a keen observer and the owner of a well-provisioned mind. There are smart little junkets in this book into everything from Japanese movies (Buruma became a film critic for The Japan Times) to the country's tattooing culture to its female elevator operators, about whom he made a documentary film. His prose is unflaggingly good. * New York Times *
Gracefully written and engaging * Sunday Times *
There are only a few scholars, journalists, critics and commentators writing about Japan in English worth reading, and Buruma is one. * Literary Review *
A vivid account of what it is like to create your truest self by moving away from all that is familiar to embrace a foreign culture and country. * Financial Times *
Oh my eyes... the whole thing sparks astonishingly to life. We'll come back to the details, lurid or otherwise, but for now all you need to know is that Buruma's high-level immersion in the country's culture begins with him tottering around on takageta, a high-heeled version of the traditional Japanese wooden sandals, and ends with him playing a character called the Midnight Cowboy in a play by the underground director and actor Kara Juro. -- Rachel Cooke * Guardian *
Buruma paints a vivid portrait of his often mind-boggling encounters with the motley collection of artists, expats and eccentrics he befriended over his six years in Tokyo. And his honesty is disarming. * AP *
Buruma makes the archetypal quest for home in a foreign land both uniquely personal and deeply illuminating. * Publisher’s Weekly (starred review) *
Illuminating... With the insight and curiosity of someone on the outside looking in, Buruma describes a transformational moment in the making of modern Japanese culture. * Booklist *
Delicious... A wild ride through the late-20th-century Japanese avant-garde scene through the eyes of an innocent from across the sea. * Kirkus Reviews (starred review) *