Author(s): Amy Stanley

History | Japan | Women's Histories | Read our reviews! | Biography and Memoir

A groundbreaking new history of Edo, now modern-day Tokyo, that will change our understanding of Japanese history, placing women's lives back in the historical picture.
Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize 2020, a vivid work of history that explores the life of an unconventional woman in Edo - now known as Tokyo - and a portrait of a great city on the brink of momentous change.
The daughter of a Buddhist priest, Tsuneno was born in 1804 in a village in Japan's snow country and was expected to lead a life much like her mother's. Instead - after three divorces and with a temperament much too strong-willed for her family's approval - she ran away to follow her own path in Edo, the city we now call Tokyo. Stranger in the Shogun's City is a rare, captivating portrait of one woman as she endeavours to recreate herself and her life, and provides a window into the drama and excitement of Japan at a pivotal moment in history.

'Compelling... Deeply absorbing' Guardian
'Marvellous... Stanley builds up a picture of Tsuneno's world, immersing us in an experience akin to time travel' TLS*
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography 2020 *

STELLA'S REVIEW:
An appealing history of Japan in the nineteenth history, Stranger in the Shogun’s City is a tale both personal and encompassing. Tsuneno is the daughter of a priest. Growing up in a small mountainous village, the temple is central to her life and expectations. Married at 12, life seems mapped out: she will be a diligent temple wife. Yet 15 years on and with no children in sight, she is sent home again with the divorce papers—not an uncommon occurrence in the nineteenth century, where women would be remarried—a failed relationship not necessitating disaster. Two more marriages down the road and the picture for Tsuneno isn’t quite as rosy, her family are losing patience with her and she has other ideas. Seeking independence, she goes against her family’s wishes and knowledge, pawns her belongings (mostly clothes), and makes her way to the city of Edo in the care of a family acquaintance—someone she thought she could trust. In a relatively short time, Tsuneno’s world is turned upside down. Not only has the trustworthy friend betrayed her, physically and emotionally, but he has also left her in financial peril and abandoned her in the city. Living in a tiny room, at the mercy of her landlord, without money or warm clothes, bedding or utensils, she is desperate to find work. Her dreams of a good position in a Shogun household are remote, but she does get a job working long hours as a housemaid. It isn’t ideal, but it enables her to stay in Edo, a lively city with prospects. Tsuneno rises and falls alongside the city. This is the story of a woman and the story of a city, Edo, at the end of a golden age, known as the Great Peace, a time just prior to the arrival of the American gunship and Commodore Perry. As we read we fall into step beside Tsuneno, seeing the informal structures of the city—the migrant workers and peddlers— that underpins the economic structure of the more formal organisations, the geisha and the theatre performers that brighten the evenings, the temple priests, the samurai of all classes (one of whom will impact this woman’s life more than she expected) and the hierarchies of the ruling shogunate classes. Pieced together from letters (between Tsueno and her family), family records kept at the temples, combined with historical events (famine, fire, political machinations) and research, Amy Stanley creates a gripping account of a woman who chose between family and freedom, who made the most of the hand she was dealt. Rich in detail with its vivid descriptions of the environs (urban and rural), and lively portraits of Tsuneno, her family and the people of Edo, Stranger in a Shogun’s City is a compelling history of an ordinary woman in a fascinating time and place. 

Author Biography: Amy Stanley received her PhD in East Asian Languages and Civilizations from Harvard University. During her graduate training, she spent years studying in Japan at Kansai University (Osaka) and Waseda University (Tokyo). She is now an associate professor of History at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, but Tokyo will always be her favourite city in the world. Stranger in the Shogun's City won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Biography.