Alex Kerr is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 writer

Writer

A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

 and Japanologist

Japanology

Japanese Studies is a term generally used in Europe to describe the historical and cultural study of Japan; in North America, the academic field is usually referred to as Japanese studies, which includes contemporary social sciences as well as classical humanistic fields.European Japanology is the...

.

Life and career

Originally from the Bethesda

Bethesda, Maryland

Bethesda is a census designated place in southern Montgomery County, Maryland, United States, just northwest of Washington, D.C. It takes its name from a local church, the Bethesda Meeting House , which in turn took its name from Jerusalem's Pool of Bethesda...

 area in Montgomery County, Maryland

Montgomery County, Maryland

Montgomery County is a county in the U.S. state of Maryland, situated just to the north of Washington, D.C., and southwest of the city of Baltimore. It is one of the most affluent counties in the United States, and has the highest percentage of residents over 25 years of age who hold post-graduate...

, Kerr’s father, a naval officer, was posted in Yokohama

Yokohama

is the capital city of Kanagawa Prefecture and the second largest city in Japan by population after Tokyo and most populous municipality of Japan. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of Tokyo, in the Kantō region of the main island of Honshu...

 from 1964 to 1966. Kerr returned to the states and studied Japanese Studies at Yale University

Yale University

Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

. After studying Chinese Studies at the University of Oxford

University of Oxford

The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...

 as a Rhodes Scholar

Rhodes Scholarship

The Rhodes Scholarship, named after Cecil Rhodes, is an international postgraduate award for study at the University of Oxford. It was the first large-scale programme of international scholarships, and is widely considered the "world's most prestigious scholarship" by many public sources such as...

, Kerr moved back to Japan full-time in 1977. He lived in Kameoka

Kameoka, Kyoto

is a city located in Kyoto, Japan.As of 2008, the city has an estimated population of 93,323 and a density of 415 persons per km². The total area is 224.90 km². It is known as one of Japan's foggiest cities....

, near Kyoto

Kyoto

is a city in the central part of the island of Honshū, Japan. It has a population close to 1.5 million. Formerly the imperial capital of Japan, it is now the capital of Kyoto Prefecture, as well as a major part of the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto metropolitan area.-History:...

, working with the Oomoto

Oomoto

Oomoto also known as Oomoto-kyo , is a sect, often categorised as a new Japanese religion originated from Shinto; it was founded in 1892 by Deguchi Nao...

 Foundation, a Shintō

Shinto

or Shintoism, also kami-no-michi, is the indigenous spirituality of Japan and the Japanese people. It is a set of practices, to be carried out diligently, to establish a connection between present day Japan and its ancient past. Shinto practices were first recorded and codified in the written...

 organisation devoted to the practice and teaching of traditional Japanese arts.

An expert on Japanese culture and art, he frequently writes and lectures in Japanese. Through his experiences in Japan, as related in his books, he has become an avid art collector and patron of Japan's traditional theatre and other arts. A good friend of the famous kabuki

Kabuki

is classical Japanese dance-drama. Kabuki theatre is known for the stylization of its drama and for the elaborate make-up worn by some of its performers.The individual kanji characters, from left to right, mean sing , dance , and skill...

 actor Bandō Tamasaburō V

Bando Tamasaburo V

is a Kabuki actor, and the most popular and celebrated onnagata currently on stage. He has also acted in a handful of films....

, Kerr was introduced to kabuki from a perspective, and with a depth, which few foreigners have. He also worked in business, working for Trammell Crow

Trammell Crow

F. Trammell Crow was an American real estate developer. Crow is credited for creating several famous real estate projects, including Dallas Market Center, Peachtree Center , and San Francisco's Embarcadero Center.-Biography:Crow was born in Dallas, Texas...

 in the 1980s. Kerr currently has several residences. He lives in Bangkok

Bangkok

Bangkok is the capital and largest urban area city in Thailand. It is known in Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon or simply Krung Thep , meaning "city of angels." The full name of Bangkok is Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahintharayutthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom...

, Thailand

Thailand

Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...

 for half of the year, and Kyoto for the other half, visiting and staying at Chiiori as well.

Chiiori

In the early 1970s, Kerr purchased a decomposing, abandoned, two-hundred-year-old Japanese house in the Iya Valley

Iya Valley

The Iya Valley region in Tokushima Prefecture, Japan is a scenic area known for its dramatic mountain valleys and old vine bridges. Although access has improved in recent years, the Iya Valley and the inner parts of Shikoku have historically been remote and difficult to enter, making them a...

, a remote mountainous area of Tokushima prefecture

Tokushima Prefecture

is a prefecture of Japan located on Shikoku island. The capital is the city of Tokushima.- Tokushima Prefecture and Myodo Prefecture :Long ago, Tokushima City belonged to a region known as Myōdō-gun...

 on the island of Shikoku

Shikoku

is the smallest and least populous of the four main islands of Japan, located south of Honshū and east of the island of Kyūshū. Its ancient names include Iyo-no-futana-shima , Iyo-shima , and Futana-shima...

. He restored the house to a liveable state, including re-thatching the kayabuki roof using traditional materials. The house was given the name Chiiori

Chiiori

is the name of an Edo period minka farmhouse in the Iya Valley, western Tokushima, Japan. Purchased by Alex Kerr in the 1970s, the house is now home to staff members of Chiiori Trust, a non-profit organization based in Iya Valley that is working toward solutions to the problems surrounding...

, or "House of the Flute". The restoration of Chiiori began a project by Kerr and others to preserve Japan's vanishing arts, culture and traditional lifestyle. In 2007, Alex decided to become more personally involved in Iya. He expanded and reorganized the board of directors of the project, and closed the house for a few months for renovations. It reopened in Nov 2007.

Works

He is perhaps most well known for his book Lost Japan (1994), which describes what he saw as the sorry modern state of the country in which he has spent more than 35 years of his life. Lost Japan was originally written and published in Japanese, as Utsukushiki Nihon no Zanzō (美しき日本の残像, "Last Glimpse of Beautiful Japan"). He was the first foreigner to be awarded the Shincho Gakugei Literature Prize for the best work of non-fiction published in Japan; he won it in 1994 for this work. His later work Dogs and Demons (2002) addressed the same issues of degradation and loss of native culture in the wake of modernization and Westernization.

English-language works

• Lost Japan
  Lost Japan
  Lost Japan is a 1994 book written by Alex Kerr on aspects of Japanese culture which were interesting to him as an American living in that country.-Chapters:#Looking for a Castle#Iya Valley - the author purchases and repairs Chiiori...
  
  (1994) ISBN 0-86442-370-5
• Dogs and Demons: The Fall of Modern Japan (2002) ISBN 0-14-101000-2
• Living in Japan (2006) ISBN 3-8228-4594-9
• Bangkok Found: Reflections on the City (2010) ISBN 978-9749863923

External links

• http://www.alex-kerr.com/
• http://www.chiiori.org/
• http://kyotojournal.org/kjselections/kerr.jpg