Speaker: Stephen Mansfield, author of Tokyo: A Cultural and Literary History
Topic: "Tokyo: City of the Imagination"
When: Starting at 6:30 p.m. on Sunday, 26 July 2009
Admission: Buy a copy of Tokyo: A Cultural and Literary History from GDB
British photojournalist/author Stephen Mansfield first came to Japan as the chief bartender on Matthew Perry's "Black Ships." He now lives in Chiba Prefecture, Japan, with his Japanese wife and their two teenage children. He entered the photography trade in 1985, while he was working in Beirut, and has since lived and worked in London, Barcelona, Cairo, and the south of France, among other places. He claims that his most interesting trips have been through the world’s deserts: a 36-day trek in 1985 from Khartoum to Alexandria with Sudanese camel herders and, more recently, a trip to the remoter corners of China’s Taklamakan Dessert.Mansfield's photo-journalism has appeared in over 60 magazines, newspapers, and journals, including The Geographical, South China Morning Post, The Middle East, Wingspan, Japan Quarterly, Travel Plan, Critical Asian Studies, and The Japan Journal. Subjects have included pieces on issues, travel, interviews, political coverage, cultural and literary themes. He is a regular book reviewer for The Japan Times. His photos have appeared in several books, and have been exhibited in London and Paris. Mansfield has authored four books on the culture and people of Laos. His Laos: A Portrait was the first color photo book published on that country, and his Lao Hill Tribes: Traditions & Patterns of Existence, published by Oxford University Press, was the first full-length work of anthropology on the ethnography of Laos. He is also the author of Japan: Islands of the Floating World, Insight Pocket Guide to Tokyo, and Eyewitness Travel Guide Tokyo, all published by Dorling Kindersley. Bradt published his China: A Guide to Yunnan Province, now in its second edition. He has contributed to several other Tokyo guides, including one for the French publisher Gallimard. For the text of his political commentary Birmanie: Le Temps Suspendu (French only, photos in collaboration with Michel Huteau), he interviewed the opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in her lakeside house in Rangoon, Myanmar. Tokyo: A Cultural and Literary History, published by Signal/OUP, came out in June 2009, and Top 10 Tokyo, published by Dorling Kindersley, will come out in November 2009.
Mansfield also works as a coordinator and instructor of NHK's "News in English" course. A Japanese garden enthusiast, he has visited over 150 landscape gardens in Japan and has designed a Japanese-style garden at his home. He has written extensively on Japanese gardens for magazines such as Ikebana International. His Japanese Stone Gardens: Origins, Meaning will be published by Tuttle in late 2009.
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