The Book of the Floating World

Loosely based upon photographs of Occupied Japan, THE BOOK OF THE FLOATING WORLD ranges across a war-ravaged landscape, from a shattered Tokyo to scenes of a depleted countryside, with a close examination of the lives constructed out of that ruin. THE BOOK OF THE FLOATING WORLD explores the photographed moment-and poetry-as a peculiar and arresting instance of witness. Threaded throughout this collection is a set of interrelated meditations upon history, violence, war, memory, and art itself.

First published in 2004, THE BOOK OF THE FLOATING WORLD is offered here in a new edition, complete with all the original photographs of Japan during the American Occupation-- the starting point for Jon Thompson's elegiac poetry. In their clarity and openness, these photographs frame the struggle between old and new identities taking shape in the postwar era. This new edition of THE BOOK OF THE FLOATING WORLD represents a ground-breaking collaboration between the visual and the literary in a format that traces the hidden connections between past and present.