A book that I've been intending for a while to give a brief synopsis of, Bugou no Ie, published earlier last year offers an insight into the houses lived in by a number of famous writers, know the house - know the writer, as the obi of the book mentions, perhaps if you wanted a literary tour of Japan this book would make a great companion, I like how the door behind the title is slightly ajar inviting us in. The book offers a snapshot of houses lived in by writers mostly of Meiji to mid twentieth century, late Showa, there is a mixture of black and white and color photographs, along with floor plan layouts of the houses and notes of artefacts of the authors. Here's a list of the writer's whose houses are featured, Mokichi Saito, Takeo Arishima, Dazai Osamu, Haruo Sato, Yasushi Inoue, Soseki Natsume, Naoya Shiga, Hakusha Kitahara, Takuboku Ishikawa, Toson Shimazaki, Doppo Kunikida, Ranpo Edogawa, Kojin Shimomura, Yakumo Koizumi, Seicho Matsumoto, Junichiro Tanizaki, Rohan Koda, Nobuko Yoshiya, Saneatsu Mushanokoji, Sakutaro Hagiwara, Katai Tayama, Saisei Muro, Fumiko Hayashi, Kyoshi Takahama, Ogai Mori, Ashihei Hiino, Shoyo Tsubouchi, Kunio Yanagita, Tatsuo Hori, Roka Tokutomi, Bokusui Wakayama, Shiki Masaoka, Kenkichi Nakamura, Saika Tomita, Kenji Miyazawa, Yaeko Nogami. Probably out of these the house lived in by Yaeko Nogami in Nagano is amongst my favourite, an old property it's roof is thatched, situated near a tree, leaves have fallen on it, giving the impression that the roof has created it's own ecological system, with a mixture of thatch, moss and leaves. The book is published from x-knowledge, a publisher whose focus is on architecture, they publish the magazine, My Home +, who have also earlier this year published a companion book to this one focusing on Literary Landscapes, which looks at landscapes associated with authors and their works - another to hunt out.
the book at amazon.jp and also the companion book Literary Landscapes
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