"Although I am out of space here, and so I have no more room to do more than mention great books of Japanese history like Andrew Gordon’s edited volume Postwar Japan as History or Victor Koschmann’s Revolution and Subjectivity in Postwar Japan, nor to give proper homage to great mentors from my past whose work will always be remembered, like Barbara Johnson’s The Critical Differenceor Edwin McClellan’s beautiful translation of Yoshikawa Eiji’s memoir Fragments of a Past. Nonetheless, I have to give this last slot to Carol Fisher Sorgenfrei, who after many years has published her Unspeakable Acts:the Avant-garde Theatre of Terayama Shūji and Postwar Japan. Steve Ridgely’s book on Terayama and my book on experimental arts came out at about the same time, but Sorgenfrei deserves credit as a founder in the field long before the 'Terayama boom' hit full stride and before it was possible to see how important this avant-garde dramatist and multimedia artist would be for understanding postwar Japanese culture."

Recommended by Miryam Sas, Professor of Comparative Literature and Film & Media and author of Experimental Arts in Postwar Japan.