Motions and Moments: More Essays on Tokyo by
Motions and Moments is the third book by Michael Pronko on the fluid feel and vibrant confusions of Tokyo life. These 42 new essays burrow into the unique intensities that suffuse the city and ponder what they mean to its millions of inhabitants.
Based on Pronko’s 18 years living, teaching and writing in Tokyo, these essays on how Tokyoites work, dress, commute, eat and sleep are steeped in insights into the city’s odd structures, intricate pleasures and engaging undertow.
Included are essays on living to size and loving the crowd, on Tokyo’s dizzying uncertainties and daily satisfactions, and on the 2011 earthquake. As in his first two books, this collection captures the ceaseless flow and passing flashes of life in biggest city in the world with gentle humor and rich detail.
About the author, Michael Pronko:
Michael Pronko lives and works in Tokyo, Japan. In the afternoons, he teaches American literature, film, music, and art at Meiji Gakuin University. Mornings, he writes. Fielding questions from students about Jackson Pollock or Kurt Vonnegut and then wandering through Shinjuku’s neon mayhem cooks up most of the ideas for his non-fiction and fiction, and wandering the world’s biggest city evenings and weekends does the rest. After nearly 20 years in Tokyo, what’s obvious becomes curious, and vice versa.
For more information, and a few free essays, go to his website:
http://www.michaelpronko.com
Like him on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pronkoauthor
His writing has appeared in The Japan Times, Newsweek Japan, the once-great city guide Tokyo Q, a weekly ST Shukan, Jazznin (Japan’s first bilingual jazz mag), Winds magazine, Jazz Colo[u]rs (in Italian!), and Artscape Japan. His website Jazz in Japan (www.jazzinjapan.com) is the first in English about Tokyo’s great jazz scene. He also continues to publish academic articles and runs a conference on teaching literature. He has also appeared on programs for NHK (Japan’s PBS) and Nihon TV’s “The Most Useful School in the World.”
A suspense novel, The Last Train will be coming out later in 2016.
Beauty and Chaos Awards
First Place Gold Prize for Cultural Non-Fiction Reader’s Favorite 2015 Book Awards
Gold Award Winner in Non-Fiction Book Awards 2015
Gold Creative Nonfiction Elit Awards 2015
Silver Travel Essay Elit Awards 2015
Tokyo’s Mystery Deepens Awards
Gold Creative Nonfiction Elit Awards 2015 (tied with Beauty and Chaos)
Silver Travel Essay Elit Awards 2015 (tied with Beauty and Chaos)