Book Description
Innovative travel writing by award-winning writer Stephen Barber as he guides the reader through the ultimate futuristic city: Tokyo. A cinematic portrayal of the city emerges, from close-up portraits of individual citizens to panoramic descriptions of its vast avenues and immense digital image screens, from day to night, past to present,Tokyo Vertigo is visceral, exhilarating travel writing.
Synopsis
Tokyo: the ultimate futuristic city. Tokyo Vertigo is the first book to capture all of the sensations of this contemporary city. Through the visceral prose of award-winning writer Stephen Barber, a cinematic portrayal of Tokyo emerges, from close-up portraits of individual citizens to panoramic descriptions of its vast avenues and immense digital image screens. Moving from district to district - from wild Shinjuku to the austere Imperial Palace - from day to night, past to present, Barber presents a multi-layered expose of Tokyo. Personal insights and observations are interwoven with developments in experimental art, film and photography, and vital defining moments in Tokyo's recent history: the earthquake devastation of 1923, the firebombing of 1945, and the riotous uproar of the late 1960s. Illustrated with 30 striking photographs from Romain Slocombe, Nobuyoshi Araki and Eikoh Hosoe, Tokyo Vertigo will appeal not only to adherents of Japanese culture, but to all readers fascinated with cities, contemporary global culture, and travel writing at its most new and innovative.
