*Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Biography*
*Winner of the 2020 National Book Critics Circle Award*
*Winner of the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography*
A âcaptivatingâ (The Washington Post) work of history that explores the life of an unconventional woman during the first half of the 19th century in Edoâthe city that would become Tokyoâand a portrait of a city on the brink of a momentous encounter with the West.
The daughter of a Buddhist priest, Tsuneno was born in a rural Japanese village and was expected to live a traditional life much like her motherâs. But after three divorcesâand a temperament much too strong-willed for her familyâs approvalâshe ran away to make a life for herself in one of the largest cities in the world: Edo, a bustling metropolis at its peak.
With Tsuneno as our guide, we experience the drama and excitement of Edo just prior to the arrival of American Commodore Perryâs fleet, which transformed Japan. During this pivotal moment in Japanese history, Tsuneno bounces from tenement to tenement, marries a masterless samurai, and eventually enters the service of a famous city magistrate. Tsunenoâs life provides a window into 19th-century Japanese cultureâand a rare view of an extraordinary woman who sacrificed her family and her reputation to make a new life for herself, in defiance of social conventions.
âA compelling story, traced with meticulous detail and told with exquisite sympathyâ (The Wall Street Journal), Stranger in the Shogunâs City is âa vivid, polyphonic portrait of life in 19th-century Japan [that] evokes the Shogun era with panache and insightâ (National Review of Books).