2018: Hisashi Inoue - Prologue

The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 16 | Issue 16 | Number 2 | Aug 07, 2018

Prologue to the Face of Jizo
Inoue Hisashi with introduction/translation by Roger Pulvers

The Mainichi is holding an international essay contest on the theme of Inoue Hisashi’s play, “The Face of Jizo,” for young people. To commemorate this contest, we have asked the play’s translator and long-time friend of the late playwright to write about him. We publish that here, together with Inoue’s prologue, the first part of the play and profiles of both playwright and translator.

Details of the essay contest and information for participants maybe seen here
(http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20180719/p2a/00m/0na/027000c).

A Work of Great Universal Value
Roger Pulvers

More than eight years have now passed since the death of my dear and wonderful friend, Inoue Hisashi. We who love his literature and theatre often ask ourselves what he would have said and written about events that have taken place in the interim.

Hisashi was a writer totally committed to the social dialogue. Like the two foreign writers he admired most, Charles Dickens and Bertolt Brecht, his stories and plays, whether on historical or contemporary themes, never strayed far from what we commonly call “issues.”


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