The Old Man Who Sold Tea
Publisher
:
Cerf
Parution date
:
EAN
:
9782204092722
Number of pages
:
152
Description
François Lachaud, an expert on Japan’s Edo period, has written a study of an exemplary eccentric, an ex-Buddhist monk skilled in the complicated art of the Japanese tea ceremony.
In Kyoto, in eighteenth-century Japan, an old Buddhist monk abandons his monastery and reenters secular life. He opens a teashop as a retreat from the world, a place to engage in conversation with those who seek him out for his wisdom and learning. In The Old Man Who Sold Tea, François Lachaud paints a vivid portrait of the former monk, his teashop, the tea ceremony, and the related culture of the Edo period. His book invites reflection on the relationship between eccentricity and asceticism, and between the real Japan and the exoticized version that lives in the Western imagination.
Author
François Lachaud : François Lachaud is a professor and the director of studies at the École Française d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO) and at the religious science department of the École Critique des Hautes Etudes. He specializes in the religious and cultural history of Japan, as well as in Japanese–European relations. He is the author of numerous works on Japan, including most recently Empires éloignés (2010) and Images et imagination, le boudhisme en Asie (2009).
|