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Gemma Nishiyama

Goodreads Author

Member Since

February 2013

URL

https://www.goodreads.com/gemmanishiyama

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Gemma Nishiyama is the pseudonym for an academic and an expat in Japan who accidentally stumbled over a secret play in "Romeo and Juliet" when she decided to figure out why the first line of the play is "Gregory, we'll not carry coals".

She was startled to conclude that Shakespeare had been an enthusiastic environmentalist and no fan of fossil fuels. Rather, he seems to have loved solar energy the best.

The interesting part of the story is that no major journal in the West wanted to touch the idea! However, some academics in Japan gave their enthusiastic approval for the sun-based idea (and definitely related to solar energy) and the author could publish her research in a journal. Many people (academics and non-academics alike) commented that Gemma Nishiyama is the pseudonym for an academic and an expat in Japan who accidentally stumbled over a secret play in "Romeo and Juliet" when she decided to figure out why the first line of the play is "Gregory, we'll not carry coals".

She was startled to conclude that Shakespeare had been an enthusiastic environmentalist and no fan of fossil fuels. Rather, he seems to have loved solar energy the best.

The interesting part of the story is that no major journal in the West wanted to touch the idea! However, some academics in Japan gave their enthusiastic approval for the sun-based idea (and definitely related to solar energy) and the author could publish her research in a journal. Many people (academics and non-academics alike) commented that the idea seemed like "something out of 'The DaVinci Code'"----which is to say a secret hiding in plain sight within a major Renaissance artwork, almost like a key that unlocks the mystery of Shakespeare's works!

The next step was to write a novel about this terrific secret! For someone who had always had aspirations to play a spy's role, this was something of a dream come true. How does one convey information? How does one convey every aspect--the obvious ones and the hidden ones---that are also involved in the process of conveying this information? In the end, only fiction seemed to have all the necessary dimensions and shifting possibilities. The pseudonym Gemma Nishiyama is a name that contains several puzzles, by the way, that interlock with the story in "Juliet is the Sun".

Now Gemma Nishiyama is working on her next novel (aiming for publication in 2014, spring, as the cherry blossoms appear), which will cover some of Shakespeare's later plays. Of course, there will be some passionate love scenes in the new novel as well! Basically, it is love seen though the prism of Shakeseare's works and Shakespeare's spirit that is the focus of the art of Nishiyama. And Shakespeare loved---he absolutely loved--the Sun!

Gemma Nishiyama, or rather the author hiding behind this name, has a B.A. in English Literature from Harvard and an M.A., also in English Literature, from the University of Chicago. Yet the ideas she works with in her fiction and non-fiction are completely original and she surmises that they would probably not find overt approval at those academic institutions. At least not yet.....

But, in the end, that is exactly what makes these ideas so very, very interesting ...more

1 post
Gemma Nishiyama's Blog: Shakespeare and the Sun

My next novel!!

I don't want to give too much away, but I have started writing novel #2, also based on my original Shakespeare research. Wow!!! I uncovered lot this summer for an academic article on Hamlet and I'll be able to use some of the material in the novel.

But this new novel will be mre than a fictionalized version of academic research. It is going to have some action and lots of love scenes.

I hope to fini Read more of this blog post »

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Published on August 07, 2013 07:04 • Tags: shakespeare

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Gemma Nishiyama’s books

Average rating: 5.0 · 1 rating · 1 review · 3 distinct works

	Juliet is the Sun it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating — published 2013	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Hamlet Paradigm 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — published 2014 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The HAMLET PARADIGM 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

* Note: these are all the books on Goodreads for this author. To add more, click here.

Gemma’s Quotes

“If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself. You must know all the while that it is there, but until it is needed you must never let it emerge into your consciousness in any shape that can be given a name.”
― George Orwell, 1984

tags: secret-keeping, secrets

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“But I had seen, the night I met her, that her beauty was going to leave her like it does all women. For the face, time relays some essential message, and time is the message. It takes things away. But its passage, its damages, are all we have. Without it, there's nothing.”
― Rachel Kushner, The Flamethrowers

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