Non Fiction

b o o k s	h o m e

Buena Vista Social Club-La Vida Es Amor		Switch Publishing (Feb 2000) /1000yen
Ai ga nakereba Jinsei ha nai		ISBN 4-916017-75-7

		December 1999, I flew to Havana and Santiago De Cuba in Cuba to interview these living legends who performed in Grammy Award music album "Buena Vista Social Club". This documentary book includes 12 long interviews about their devotion and affection to the Cuban traditional music, the life and love (we took this book title from the word that Omara Portuond has mentioned during our interview - It means; No Love, No Life), a reportorial piece on music sessions at Egrem, the world famous recording studio in Havana. You might also enjoy impressionistic photos, taken by Japanese leading photographer, Jin Ohashi, of landscapes and friendly people in this lovely island where once America was so close. This wonderful trip gave me great inspirations for "Flagler's Folly", the novel I wrote in later year!

New York Street Reader	Takarajima-sha (Dec 1996) / 1300yen
New York Souguu Dokuhon	ISBN 4-7966-1157-6

		As you see the book title, this compilation columns gathered unique and original angles of Big Apple, written by several Japanese authors. The contents include various topics, such as minority problems viewed by outsiders, ethnic food tasting, or Japanese cab driver's insider report. I chose the theme called "New York on the road "(I am not a beat generation though!) based on my own experience when I used to be a street artist in SOHO. If you sit on the street all day, you would be amazed how you can view things from different angle which you might not see while simply passing by surface of the city. Also I interviewed Gee Lessin, Brazilian artist who demonstrated for the freedom of street artists and finally gained the right for showing their art works on the street once city did not permitted. The book is published as a part of Wonderland Traveler series from Takarajima-sha.