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Lian Hearn

With Emperor of the Eight Islands, Lian Hearn delves into the mythic past of the world she crafted so perfectly in the Tales of the Otori series ...

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The Storyteller and his Three Daughters by Lian Hearn & Henry Black by Ian McArthur

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November 2013, no. 356

For centuries, Japan has magnetised the West’s imagination, evoking both fear and fascination. In the late nineteenth century, when most writers and readers in Europe, North America, and Australia had yet to see this ‘young’, newly accessible country for themselves, literary fantasies on the Madam Butterfly theme became a craze. Then, after Japan invaded its neighbours and defeated the Russian fleet, invasion fiction and drama flourished. Later, stories about geisha and yakuza served the same two purposes, attracting some and frightening others. Many readers are better informed now, yet the ‘Lost in Translation’ genre continues to cater to those who prefer Japan to remain weird and inscrutable, while Last Samurai’ narrativesenable others to fantasise about the virtues of a past, more civilised age. Anime and manga continue to fascinate their fans across the world. There is a nascent revival interest in rakugo; surprisingly, the authors responsible for introducing it to Western readers are Australians.

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Within little more than a decade, between the 1850s and the 1860s, seven centuries of Japanese feudalism and more than two hundred years of seclusion came to an end ...

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Heaven’s Net is Wide by Lian Hearn & Blue Dragon by Kylie Chan

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December 2007–January 2008, no. 297


There has been talk recently about the loss of regionalism in Australian literature and culture, and about the decline of Australian literature generally, but these two novels suggest that not only is Australian fiction flourishing but it is finding new ways to engage with the cultures of the region. They represent innovative interactions between Australia and Asia, for a popular audience.

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