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Amy Stanley

Stranger in the Shogun's City

  • Stranger in the Shogun's City

  • Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize 2020, a vivid work of history that explores the life of an unconventional woman in Edo - now known as Tokyo - and a portrait of a great city on the brink of momentous change

    'Compelling... Deeply absorbing' Guardian

    The daughter of a Buddhist priest, Tsuneno was born in 1804 in a village in Japan's snow country and was expected to lead a life much like her mother's. Instead - after three divorces and with a temperament much too strong-willed for her family's approval - she ran away to follow her own path in Edo, the city we now call Tokyo.

    Stranger in the Shogun's City is a rare, captivating portrait of one woman as she endeavours to recreate herself and her life, and provides a window into the drama and excitement of Japan at a pivotal moment in history.

    'Marvellous... Stanley builds up a picture of Tsuneno's world, immersing us in an experience akin to time travel' TLS

    * Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography 2020 *
    * Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Biography 2021 *
    * Winner of the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography *
    * Longlisted for the HWA Non-Fiction Crown *

Amy Stanley received her PhD in East Asian Languages and Civilizations from Harvard University. During her graduate training, she spent years studying in Japan at Kansai University (Osaka) and Waseda University (Tokyo). She is now an associate professor of History at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, but Tokyo will always be her favourite city in the world. Stranger in the Shogun's City won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Biography, the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction and the HWA Non-Fiction Crown Award.

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