Jiro Taniguchi – författare

We are delighted to be able to relaunch and enlarge Taniguchi's most cherished title. A book in which nothing happens but everything occurs. The Walking Man follows a modern day Japanese business man as he strolls at random through urban Japan often silent, usually alone with his vivid dreams that let time stand still. Join him as he climbs a tree in bare feet, takes time out to observe the birds, plays in the puddles after the rain and returns a shell to the sea. Contains 4 extra stories and 28 pages in colour. Original sense of reading.

Kyoto, 1966. The young Hamaguchi is working for a textile manufacturer whilst dreaming of becoming an artist, when an incident at the zoo forces his hand. He moves to Tokyo at the invitation of an old school friend who also arranges an 'interview' at the studios of the famous mangaka, Shiro Kondo. Here he discovers both the long hours of meeting studio deadlines along with the nightlife and artistic haunts of the capital. For the first time ever, Taniguchi recalls his beginnings in manga and his youth spent in Tokyo in the '60s. It is a magnificent account of his apprenticeship where all the finesse and elegance of the creator are united to illustrate those first emotions of adulthood. These reflections are made all the more poignant since his sad death on February 11th 2017 aged just 69.

Exiled from Japan during the Boshin War in 1868 as the new Meiji government took hold, defeated samurais Hikosaburo and Manzo eventually settle in Crow territory in North America. One day out hunting, Hikosaburo encounters a young native female who has just given birth hidden in the scrub, and who is on the run from white traders! Saved from the traders by the chief of the Oglalas, they soon form a profound friendship and respect for each other's cultures, fighting alongside their new brothers in their struggle against the invaders.

Lost in the Great North, two men are saved by the appearance of an old hunter who divulges a strange legend to them. Surrounded by wolves and fighting for their survival, two explorers head for Alaska to bury their companion... 1920s Japan and a man sets out to find the bear that killed his son... A marine biologist begins a quest to find the mythical whale graveyard. Six shorts with as many stories of men confronted with a savage nature, which is sometimes cruel, sometimes forgiving but always vast. Taniguchi at his award-winning best.

Mountaineer Shiga made a promise to his best friend following his tragic death in the Himalayas - now 12 years later he is called upon to honour that promise. When 15-year-old student Megumi fails to arrive home from school her mother calls on her dead husband's best friend for help. Shiga abandons his mountain refuge and enters the city to look for the girl - and with the police investigation at a standstill, Shiga has to go it alone.

Jiro Taniguchi returns with this delightful and insightful tale of life in a Japan long forgotten. Inspired by an historical figure, Tadataka Ino (1745 - 1818), Taniguchi invites us to join this unnamed but appealing and picturesque figure as he strolls through the various districts of Edo, the ancient Tokyo, with its thousand little pleasures. Now retired from business he surveys, measures, draws and takes notes whilst giving free rein to his taste for simple poetry and his inexhaustible capacity for wonder.

Hiroshi Nakahara is a forty-something salary man returning to Tokyo from an intense business trip when he is catapulted back into his fourteen year-old life and body whilst retaining all the character and experience of the adult. Will he change his past or be forever condemned to relive each painful moment? That fateful day his father disappeared without explanation, the death of his mother ... would he marry his childhood sweetheart and never see his wife and daughters again? Master manga-ka Taniguchi at his most powerful.

After his mother dies aged 78, the author discovers a beautifully lacquered box which contains what appear to be old hand-drawn postcards and photos of Venice. One photo of Piazza San Marco particularly catches his eye. It is of a Japanese couple feeding a multitude of pigeons in the square dressed in what looked like 1930's style. Who were they? What relevance did they have for his mother? Armed with the contents of the lacquered box he travels to Venice to track down the places and events in the images and to discover the identity of the young couple in the old photograph.

On his third Everest expedition in June 1924, George Mallory and his climbing partner Andrew Irvine disappeared on the North-Eastern ridge during their ascent - having been sighted only a few hundred metres from the summit. In 1993, in a small Nepalese shop, Makoto Fukamachi, photographer for a Japanese expedition to conquer Mount Everest, stumbles across an old camera. Could it be Mallory's? And does it hold the secret of whether Mallory and Irvine made it to the summit almost 30 years before Hillary?

On his third Everest expedition in June 1924, George Mallory and his climbing partner Andrew Irvine disappeared on the North-East ridge during their ascent - having been sighted only a few hundred metres from the summit. Makoto Fukamachi, photographer and mountaineer, continues his search for Habu Joji and the camera which could hold the secret to Mallory's attempt. His quest takes him high into Nepal to the town of Namche Bazar, capital of Sherpa country. Taniguchi's realistic art and Baku's timeless script will take readers to the heights mountaineers can only dream of.