“Even after more than thirty years in Japan, I find myself surprised – and humbled – every hour. Whether it’s the black-clad puppeteers staging propulsive dramas on a Bunraku stage in Osaka, forty-five minutes from my home, or the beautiful shrine of Itsukushima, lapped by water, just across from the haunting Peace Memorial in Hiroshima, Japan feels like an exercise in time-travel that can take me to several planets – and centuries – in a morning.” Pico Iyer “The Japanese have always appreciated things half-glimpsed – the suggestion of a presence: a waterfall, for example, veiled by the frond-like branches of a maple tree recognised as much by the sound of the water and the smell of the damp earth…” Yoko Kawaguchi