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Bridging of different cultures through literature by Wendy Jones Nakanishi

Abstract

Klemen Zdravko

Wendy Jones Nakanishi, a Professor of English Language and Comparative Culture at a private college in Kagawa, western Japan, grew up in a tiny country town in the northwest corner of Indiana. Nakanishi has had an international education, earning a BA in English from Indiana University, an MA from Lancaster University in England, and a Doctorate in 18th -century English studies from Edinburgh University in Scotland. She has been published in America, Japan and Europe, and her research ranges from work on eighteenth-century English Literature to analyze of contemporary Japanese and British authors. Her academic work consists of critical monographs, articles and book reviews. She has also written many short stories and ‘creative non-fiction’ pieces drawn from her experience of living in Japan for the past thirty-two years, memoirs depicting her life as an American University Professor vividly, a foreigner married to a Japanese farmer in an emphatically homogenous culture, and the mother of three biracial sons. Her stories have appeared in various literary magazines in Japan and abroad. She has, lately, ventured into fiction, completing a novel, Imperfect Strangers (under the pen name of Lea O’Harra), issued in both digital and print versions in 2015 by Endeavour Press (UK), and in 2016 by Fine Line Press (New Zealand). Imperfect Strangers is the first volume in the so-called ‘Inspector Inoue murder mystery series’; its sequel, Progeny, was published in print and digital form by Endeavour Press (UK) in June 2016. Nakanishi’s writing is most valuable as a contribution to modernday multiculturalism and¸ in this respect, her work contributes to the creation of a culture of peace and dialogue among civilizations and cultures. Her literary work is a given that will represent literature with value as a bridge between cultures.

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