The acclaimed literary series Four Stories, which runs in Boston (USA), Osaka, and Tokyo, kicks off its summer 2008 season on June 15 in Osaka, with readings from the following published authors:

•  Hans Brinckmann, Dutch-born ex-banker living in Tokyo and London, and the author of The Magatama Doodle, Noon Elusive, The Ballad of Hope Hill, and the forthcoming Showa Japan
•  Deborah Iwabuchi, translator, author and long-time Japan Resident who has translated Crossfire (with Anna Isozaki) and Devil’s Whisper by Miyabe Miyuki, Beyond the Blossoming Fields (with Anna Isozaki) by Junichi Watanabe, Translucent Tree by Nobuko Takagi, Love From the Depths (with Kazuko Enda) by Tomihiro Hoshino, and others.
•  Sarah Mulvey, instructor at Nanzan University in Nagoya and candidate for a Masters in Creative Writing (U. of Lancaster), where her thesis is “One Way to Tokyo - Experiences of Western Women in Japan”
•  Owen Schaefer, Canadian writer living in Tokyo with work appearing in the expatriate anthology Jungle Crows, Dimsum Literary Journal, the Tokyo Advocate, and McGill Street Magazine; and winner of the New Brunswick Writers’ Federation prize for poetry

Each author will read in English from his or her fiction or nonfiction prose for 15 minutes, under the theme “Life among the Locals: Tales of expat writers in Japan”

The Four Stories experience: like a 19th-Century salon, only 150 years later?same socializing, same witty banter, corsets optional.

Venue:
Portugalia: Osaka’s hippest Portuguese bar and grill
Sunday, June 15
6-8pm (venue opens @ 5)
Nishi-Tenma 4-12-11, Umeda, Osaka
[Just north of the American Consulate]
06-6362-6668
Admittance free and open to the public

More information, plus free MP3s and pictures from past events, @ www.fourstories.org