Love Upon the Chopping Board
Marou and Claire met at a bar in Tokyo. Separated by seventeen years in age, by their cultural origins and by the requirements of visas, they have managed to maintain their relationship through these vicissitudes. Autobiography, duography, love story, cross-cultural reflections and lesbian history, Love Upon the Chopping Board explores the personal and political dimension of lesbianism in Japan and Australia.
Marou Izumo was born in Japan in 1951 and became involved in Japan’s first lesbian feminist group in 1977. She has worked in women’s theatre, is a columnist and author of a collection of essays on cinema. Claire Maree was born in Western Australia in 1968, and now resides in Tokyo. Her poetry has been published in Poetry Australia and Common Lives/Lesbian Lives.
2000 | ISBN 9781875559824 | Paperback | 200 x 130 mm | 175 pp
Reviews
This book is remarkable because...it has successfully linked Japanese politics, sexuality, history and cultural anthropology into a complex and nuanced story. i would highly recommend it to all teachers of contemporary Japan studies who are interested in issues of gender, sexuality, the Japanese family system and for a general understanding of a marginalised sector of Japanese society.
–Sharon Chalmers, Intersections
'This work's greatest success comes from putting a human face on the struggle for acceptance that people of alternative sexualities face, on both a legal and personal front.'
–Katherine Buffington, thirdspace
‘… a deeply personal account.’
–Sue Green, South China Morning Post
‘Highly recommended for anyone who wants to increase their range of view.’
–Crusader Hillis, OUT Magazine
Table of Contents
1. Be Together? Australia Here We Come!
2. Why Japan?
3. Gays and Junkies and Prostitutes
4. JJ's Parents Also Worried
5. Seeds of Reconciliation
6. High School
7. Watashi, Otambi, Dyke
8. Tokyo Closets
9. Golden Week
10. Documents
11. The Parade
12. Coming Home
13. Days Spent with Nyan Nyan
14. Theoretical Curves
15. Moving
Afterword: (R)evolution at Nagaragawa
Afterword
Glossary of Japanese Terms