JEAN GORDON KOCIENDA: GIRL IN A BOX at Books Inc.

Girl in a Box is based on the life of Japanese poet Yosano Akiko (1878-1942).

The event includes an exhibit of traditional Japanese calligraphy depicting Akiko’s tanka poems and created by local artists.

Shamisen expert Kineya Sahoshō and singer Saeko Araki will perform a short nagauta musical piece while 8th-Dan Calligraphy Expert Goyo Morimoto does a live calligraphy demonstration. Jean will follow with a reading and book signing.

About the Book

In early twentieth-century Japan, women have few rights. Yet one precocious poet—a brooding daughter, locked in her room at night by protective parents—runs away to live a life of her choosing. She journeys across Siberia to Paris, where she witnesses the last golden days of the Belle Époque. She perseveres through poverty, pregnancy, infidelity, earthquake, and fire, to become a name every Japanese schoolchild knows today as the first person to translate the classical Tale of Genji into modern Japanese. Based on the life of Yosano Akiko (1878-1942) and filled with original translations of her 31-syllable tanka poetry, Girl in Box will ignite discussion about the female artist’s challenge to be creative while juggling career, family, and personal freedom.

Jean Gordon Kocienda is a former Silicon Valley geopolitical risk analyst and intelligence officer. She has done extensive archival research for historical television documentaries in Japan. She holds a B.A. from Colgate University in English Literature and an M.A. from George Washington University in International Affairs. She lived in Kyoto, Japan in the late 1980s and early 1990s, studying Chinese Philosophy at Kyoto University for one year. She is President of the California Writers Club (Marin Branch), and a longtime volunteer with the Bay Area non-profit Refugee and Immigrant Transitions. She also studies calligraphy with Goyō Sensei.

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