We will be reading and discussing the book The Outsider: The Life and Work of Lafcadio Hearn by Steve Kemme. Dive into the extraordinary life journey of the man who inspired the name for the JSNO Kwaidan Book Club. This book will let us see into Lafcadio's childhood, his career path, his life in Japan, and his works on Japanese folklore.
Opportunity Alert:
Author Steve Kemme will be the keynote speaker at the first-annual Lafcadio Fest, celebrating the life and work of Lafcadio Hearn, to be held at the New Orleans Jazz Museum on Esplanade Ave on Saturday, June 20th! He will be holding a panel where attendees can ask questions about his book.
This meeting is in-person at Kung Fu Tea at 3348 W Esplanade Ave S, Metairie, LA 70002.
About the Book:
(Page count: 272 pages)
Step into the extraordinary life of the man who made an impact as an observer wherever he lived, and went on to become the leading western interpreter of Japan and Japanese culture—a position he still occupies today.
Born in Greece and abandoned as a child, Lafcadio Hearn lived the life of an exile. He travelled the world and became a famous writer but always felt like an outsider—in Dublin, London, Cincinnati, New Orleans, and French-speaking Martinique. To him, none of these places felt like home.
Hearn's life in America was punctuated by a string of successes and failures. In Cincinnati he became the city's best-known crime reporter but was fired after marrying a black woman. Devastated, he moved to New Orleans, where he championed French Creole and Caribbean culture and created the city's image as a place of voodoo and debauchery (the image which many Americans still hold today).
Hearn arrived in Japan at a time of historic change. Sent there as a correspondent, he soon found himself alone and jobless. He settled in the remote town of Matsue, firmly believing that Japan would provide him with an endless supply of rich writing material—perhaps enough to last a lifetime.
Over the next dozen years, Hearn published 15 books which were lauded by the likes of Mark Twain, William Butler Yeats, Albert Einstein and Charlie Chaplin. Hearn's books made him famous as the leading writer on Japan and Japanese culture.
This book includes a foreword by Bon Koizumi, Hearn's great-grandson and director of the Lafcadio Hearn Memorial Museum in Matsue, Japan.
About the Author:
Steve Kemme is president of the Lafcadio Hearn Society/USA and a former reporter for the Cincinnati Enquirer, where Hearn formerly worked. He is a member of the Japan Research Center of Greater Cincinnati and has spoken at Hearn symposiums worldwide.
Information provided by Tuttle Publishing.
