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A classic of modern travel writing- the story of one man's epic trek across Japan, from north to south.

About the Author

ALAN BOOTH was born in London in 1946 and travelled to Japan in 1970 to study Noh theatre. He stayed, working as a writer and film critic, until his untimely death in 1993.

Reviews

'Illuminating'
*Economist*

'A memorable, oddly beautiful book'
*Wall Street Journal*

'A marvellous glimpse of the Japan that rarely peeks through the country's public image'
*Washington Post*

Fluent in the language, well-informed and disabused, [Booth] is in the fine tradition of hard-to-please travellers like Norman Douglas, Evelyn Waugh, and V.S. Naipaul. A sharp eye and a good memory for detail...give an astonishing immediacy to his account.
*The Times Literary Supplement*

[Booth] achieved an extraordinary understanding of life as it is lived by ordinary Japanese....Frequently brilliant in his insights
*The New York Times*

'One of the classic Japan travel books of the modern age ... a vivid but witty portrayal of rural Japan in the seventies, and the quirky characters who populated it'
*Japan Times*

Booth vividly evokes his 2,000-mile, 128-day journey on foot from Japan's northernmost point, Cape Soya in Hokkaido, to Cape Sata in the south. As he recounts his misadventures on this epic trek, he engagingly reveals the realities of off-the-tourist-track Japan.
*National Geographic*