Kotan Chronicles: Selected Poems 1928-1943 - Paperback

Sarashina, Genzō: - Genzō Sarashina was born in eastern Hokkaido in 1904, the son of first-generation Japanese settlers. An anarchist, and a politically and socially engaged poet in his youth, he was a vocal critic of the Japanese government's policy of assimilation of the indigenous Ainu Community. He worked as a farmer and, until he was dismissed for refusing to teach the government-prescribed history syllabus, as a teacher in an elementary school most of whose pupils were Ainu children. His first poetry collection, Taneimo (Seed Potatoes), was published in 1930 and addressed in vigorous and colloquial language the plight of both poor migrant settlers and Ainu people. After the war, he continued to publish poetry and became a noted expert on Ainu culture. He died in 1985.Willems, Nadine: - Nadine Willems obtained her PhD in History from the University of Oxford in 2015 and joined the University of East Anglia as lecturer in Japanese history in 2016. She specialises in the intellectual and cultural history of modern Japan, with a particular focus on early twentieth-century transnational revolutionary connections between Europe and East Asia. Her research interests extend to the history of ethnography, proletarian literature and the development of the discipline of geography. Prior to returning to academia in 2008, she worked in media and business in Tokyo for fifteen years.