Preface

Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904) is frequently depicted in the Japanese language literature as the “best ” foreign interpreter of Japan. His reputation in the West today, however, is very different. To most Western readers Hearn is either forgotten or obscure, while Western Japanologists often dismiss him as unworthy of serious study because of his poor knowledge of Japanese and the non-academic nature of his work.1 In his Rediscovering Lafcadio Hearn (1997) and Lafcadio Hearn in International Perspectives (2007), Hirakawa Sukehiro, a leading Japanese researcher, has attempted to reconcile the Japanese and Western understandings of Hearn.2 It is significant that Hearn’s international lapse into critical obscurity is a postwar development. He was once popular in the West, especially after Japan’s victory in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05). His works were translated into several European languages, and were widely read in Europe in the 1920s. Hirakawa takes issue with the negative image that Western readers have of Shintô, Japan’s native religion. Since Shintô was used and abused by Japan’s wartime militaristic ideology, it has become largely taboo in the postwar West (as indeed in Japan) to speak favorably of it. This is one reason why Hearn, wh