Alex Kerr

Recounting his personal experiences of Japan over 30 years, Kerr warns that much value is being lost under a tide of change.

Lost Japan

Teodora Živulović

Once Japan was a place of primeval forest and pristine mountains. In recent decades, this ancient world has almost been destroyed. Alex Kerr's evocative, prize-winning Lost Japanranges over Kabuki theatre, tea ceremonies, art, landscape, financial bubbles and his own childhood in Japan to explore a vanishing culture. 'Alex Kerr's book carries a powerful message applicable to all cultures. He is on a life-long quest for beauty.' Issey Miyake 'This deeply personal witness to Japan's wilful loss of its traditional culture is at the same time an immensely valuable evaluation of just what that culture was.' Donald Richie, author of The Japanese Film 'Alex Kerr loves Japan as much as anyone, but he knows more about it than most.' Stephen Hesse, Japan Times

Oz Lubling

Francis Kin

Lewis Martin

An enchanting and fascinating insight into Japanese landscape, culture, history and future. Originally written in Japanese, this passionate, vividly personal book draws on the author's experiences in Japan over thirty years. Alex Kerr brings to life the ritualized world of Kabuki, retraces his initiation into Tokyo's boardrooms during the heady Bubble Years, and tells the story of the hidden valley that became his home. But the book is not just a love letter. Haunted throughout by nostalgia for the Japan of old, Kerr's book is part paean to that great country and culture, part epitaph in the face of contemporary Japan's environmental and cultural destruction. Winner of Japan's 1994 Shincho Gakugei Literature Prize. Alex Kerr is an American writer, antiques collector and Japanologist. Lost Japan is his most famous work. He was the first foreigner to be awarded the Shincho Gakugei Literature Prize for the best work of non-fiction published in Japan.