Sara Backer

This blog was originally created to publicize my novel AMERICAN FUJI published in 2001 with a reissue in 2009. Now, I am all about poetry and I use this blog to show where you can read my poems.

Friday, September 18, 2015

Intima: A Journal of Narrative and Medicine

Here's a poem about needles. Who can relate?

Sara Backer at 7:43 PM No comments:

Share

‹

›

Home

View web version

About American Fuji

Sara Backer: Most Americans who move to Japan are already in love with their idea of Japan. My feelings were neutral. I had a fresh graduate degree and jobs for English majors were scarce. I was lucky to get a prestigious Visiting Professorship at a national Japanese university and I was up for adventure. I didn't know I would be the first woman and the first American to hold that job. I was in for more groundbreaking than I imagined, but while Japan's invisible expectations were stressful, my students made my job the most fulfilling one I've had. I wanted to show aspects of Japan I hadn't found in books written by men (who experience an entirely different culture), but I didn't want to add to the cliche genre of personal memoir about gaijin in Asia. Fiction was the way I could show the humor and charm of a country that seems crazy and frustrating to a Western ex-pat. This blog explains how my actual experience informed my novel.

View my complete profile

Powered by Blogger.