[IHJ Artists’ Forum/ Reading] A Ghostly Tale from Tohoku

  • Date: Tuesday, November 5, 2013, 7:00 pm
  • Venue: Lecture Hall, International House of Japan
  • Speaker: Marie Mutsuki Mockett, Writer, US-Japan Creative Arts Fellow
  • Language: English and Japanese
    (with consecutive interpretation and translated text)
  • Co-sponsored by the Japan-US Friendship Commission (JUSFC)
  • Admission: Free (reservations required, Seating Capacity: 70)

Marie Mutsuki MockettThe writer Marie Mutsuki Mockett was born to a Japanese mother and an American father. After the 3.11 tragedy, she wrote a widely acclaimed Op-Ed piece for the New York Times, “Memories, Washed Away.” During her time in Japan, she visited her mother’s home town, Iwaki City in Fukushima and other Tohoku areas. She explored the religious and cultural frames within which the Japanese cope with death and disaster. In the midst of all the death and destruction, she found a message of hope from an ancient zashiki warashi, a child-like, benevolent spirit she came across in Tono City in Iwate. She wrote about this episode in a new piece “Message from the Other World,” which was published in the quarterly magazine Sendaigaku. Mockett will read excerpts from this piece.