Stranger in the Shogun's City

A Japanese Woman and Her World

De: Amy Stanley

Narrado por: Joy Osmanski

Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Biography

Winner of the 2020 National Book Critics Circle Award

Winner of the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography

A “captivating” (The Washington Post) work of history that explores the life of an unconventional woman during the first half of the 19th century in Edo - the city that would become Tokyo - and a portrait of a great city on the brink of a momentous encounter with the West.

The daughter of a Buddhist priest, Tsuneno was born in a rural Japanese village and was expected to live a traditional life much like her mother’s. But after three divorces - and a temperament much too strong-willed for her family’s approval - she ran away to make a life for herself in one of the largest cities in the world: Edo, a bustling metropolis at its peak.

With Tsuneno as our guide, we experience the drama and excitement of Edo just prior to the arrival of American Commodore Perry’s fleet, which transformed Japan. During this pivotal moment in Japanese history, Tsuneno bounces from tenement to tenement, marries a masterless samurai, and eventually enters the service of a famous city magistrate. Tsuneno’s life provides a window into 19th-century Japanese culture - and a rare view of an extraordinary woman who sacrificed her family and her reputation to make a new life for herself, in defiance of social conventions.

“A compelling story, traced with meticulous detail and told with exquisite sympathy” (The Wall Street Journal), Stranger in the Shogun’s City is “a vivid, polyphonic portrait of life in 19th-century Japan [that] evokes the Shogun era with panache and insight” (National Review of Books).

©2020 Amy Stanley. All rights reserved. (P)2020 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

An Empathetic Glimpse Into The Past

So I have been planning a trip to Japan for a little while now. As a result, I like to dive headfirst into understanding the culture and its history as best I can. This was an excellent story to help me get some understanding of Japanese culture at a very tumultuous time in the 1800s. I thought the narrator was fantastic. Enjoy.

You really wish the book was longer

Fantastic description of the time in which Tsunono lived. It’s a pleasure to hear the story and the narrator is excellent. You are left longing for the book to have been longer and you could have more detail about her thoughts, experiences and daily life. An amazing person who refused to let the story of her life be written by convention.

Learn about the Japan you never knew existed.

Wonderfully evocative of the Edo period and beyond in Japan. using archived documents, the author reveals the world of a woman who broke rules in order to live her own life.

Not Clavell’s Shogun

The author’s passion for the history of this lost city and the women who contributed and suffered , as did so many of the population , is clear. She is meticulous in sharing the detail she gathered in 10 years of research including the Shogunate, life in the provinces, global politics and more. I found the narrator excellent in her storytelling.
Sadly, there was not enough in the way of documented interactions with people who actually knew the main character to leave her as other than the ‘stranger’ in the title. I was left feeling the author’s sentiments of regret , and wanting more.

Evocative Story of 19th century Japan

I very much enjoyed this book. The reader is terrific. I learned a lot, too. I felt like I was with our heroine as she navigated life in Edo.

The Japan Before 1853

Japanese history and culture interest me greatly, so I chose this book out of a curiosity to know more. Japanese women of this period are not well-known, so Stanley's research about one ordinary woman's story is also intriguing.

Sunano was not a city girl, but the daughter of a country priest expected to marry and raise a family near her community. Instead, she chose to not marry (after several failed arranged marriages) and go live independently in a city she had never been to: Edo. Even though she had no support from her family and no one to trust, she persisted in trying to live a life that she could choose for herself. The bravery of doing so in this period is remarkable and that Sunano eventually succeeded in her wish even more so.

This period is also before the arrival of the West in 1853, so Japan's closed nature allowed it to focus internally on culture and social norms. Stanley demonstrated well how tightly the shogunate controlled everyday life, from moving between cities to what plays could be performed. She also shows how life in the provinces was very different from the city, which tended toward tradition and being stationary. And of course, the opportunities for a single woman without family or connection in a new city were also limited.

I enjoyed this book and the glimpse it gave of Japan during the Tokugawa era. And Sunano's story was compelling and inspiring, showing how even a country girl could chart her own course in a new place. I definitely recommend it if you're interested in Japanese or women's history.

10% plot 90% research

If one was looking for a history of life during the shogun era, this is your book. The research is outstanding. But if you’re looking die a novel, this probably isn’t your book. The plot was very thin and not that interesting

Recommended for anyone with an interest in Japan

I very much enjoyed this audiobook. I recommend it for anyone who has an interest in Japan, its history, especially the late Feudal period.

Lovely microhistory

In the dusty letters of a servant woman which she discovered in an archive, Stanley uncovers a gripping, emotional microhistory. She reads aggressively and convincingly against the ideological grain of the letters she uncovered, showing that Tsuneno was not a disobedient and problematic daughter as her relatives saw her, but a strong-willed woman willing to work as hard as she could to lighten the burden on her family and make a life that she could call her own in Edo. If you already know early modern Japan you will find that the text is a bit padded with generic information, but some of the context is eye-opening and the underlying microhistory packs an emotional punch.

Makes the past come alive!

As a professional tour guide specializing in Japan, I so appreciate the vivid details of everday 19th century Japanese life rendered thoughtfully and relatable. Bravo!