Very Few People Come This Way: Lyrical Episodes from the Year of the Rabbit

by Edward G. Seidensticker

Very Few People Come this Way is an epistolary novel set mostly in Japan. In the background are the last dying twitches of the student rebellion and a huge bribery scandal that led to the fall of a prime minister. The Year of the Rabbit referred to in the subtitle is 1975. The epistolists are three in number, two Americans and a Japanese. The Americans ravage the Japanese lyrical spirit with gusto. The Japanese correspondent wishes to take it seriously, but whether she succeeds better in her purpose than they do in theirs is doubtful.

197 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1996

About the author

Edward George Seidensticker was a distinguished American scholar, translator, and historian renowned for his translations of Japanese literature, both classical and modern. Born in 1921 near Castle Rock, Colorado, Seidensticker studied English at the University of Colorado and later became fluent in Japanese through the U.S. Navy Japanese Language School during World War II. He served in the Pacific theater as a Marine language officer, later participating in Japan’s occupation and developing a lasting affinity for the country and its culture.
Following his military service, he earned a master’s degree from Columbia University and briefly worked in the U.S. Foreign Service in Tokyo. Deciding on an academic path, he studied Japanese literature at the University of Tokyo and began translating major literary works. His translations of Yasunari Kawabata’s Snow Country and Thousand Cranes helped introduce modern Japanese literature to a Western audience and contributed to Kawabata’s Nobel Prize win in 1968. Seidensticker also translated works by Jun’ichirō Tanizaki and Yukio Mishima, and his 1976 translation of The Tale of Genji remains a landmark achievement.
He taught at Stanford, the University of Michigan, and Columbia University. Seidensticker also authored literary criticism, cultural histories, and a memoir. He received numerous honors and remains a towering figure in the field of Japan studies.