Writer, editor, translator, and indie publisher, former tenured professor at a national Japanese institution, Shizuoka University. I’ve taught at three Australian universities, Sydney, Macquarie and Wollongong, as well as Japanese business college. Areas I’ve lectured in include Literature, Drama and Theatre, Film, Arts Journalism, Media and Communication Studies, Popular Culture, Business English; and Human Resource Management and Strategic Business Studies. I hold a PhD from the University of Sydney, with a specialization in modern literature and critical theory.
I’m the translator of Saneatsu Mushanokoji’s The Innocent (Furin Chime, 2024), the famous Meiji masterpiece Omedetaki Hito (1911), a landmark I-novel that has never before appeared in English, though receiving copious critical reference in the literature on Japanese modernism.
My editing includes my cross-cultural memoir Tatami Days: Getting a Life in Japan (2018; 2020), and Sylvanus Cobb, Jr., The Knight’s Motto (1892; Vanishing Literature Series, 2020), both published by Furin Chime; and Essentially Oriental: Selected Writings of R.H. Blyth (Tokyo: Hokuseido, 1994), in collaboration with Professor Kuniyoshi Munakata, Leader of the Noh Shakespeare Group of Japan, celebrated for Noh realizations such as Noh Hamlet (1991) and Noh Othello (1998).
I worked as honorary Chief Editor of an academic journal, Studies in Information, published in English and Japanese by Shizuoka University Faculty of Informatics. As a freelance editor, I have helped several writers develop books and research papers.
I have written many articles and reviews in media and academic publications such as the Australian newspaper, Australian Book Review, Australian Society, Australian Broadcasting Corporation (The Deep End, Radio National), Education About Asia (Univ. Michigan), Persimmon: Asian Literature, Arts and Culture (New York), Samuel Beckett Today (Amsterdam and New York), the international Journal of Beckett Studies , Beckett Circle [PDF download, U Antwerp, ‘Beckett in Sydney‘] , and Studies in English Literature (English Literary Society of Japan).
Several of my academic and media articles are available at my ResearchGate profile researchgate.net/profile/Michael_Guest. Selection here at JSTOR. My Amazon author page is amazon.com/author/michaelguest
Michael Guest, PhD
ABN 12759289705
“You see, Japan does not actually rest atop an infinite pile of turtles, but on the back of a giant carp . . .”
In his mid-thirties, Australian freelance writer and PhD graduate Michael Guest headed for Japan on a whim, worked as tenured Professor in a national university, and stayed fifteen years. Memoir and cultural reflection, his captivating story is one of growth, adaptation and an ever-deepening appreciation of an enchanting, at times perplexing, society.
The Innocent: A Landmark in Japanese Literature
By seminal figure Saneatsu Mushanokoji (1885-1976). Michael Guest’s translation is approved by the author’s estate for global publication.
The first English translation of Saneatsu Mushanokoji’s 1911 masterpiece, Omedetaki Hito (often referred to as “The Good-Natured Person”). This intriguing work, the original ‘I-novel’, explores identity and self-expression during Japan’s Meiji Restoration, a period of immense cultural and existential transformation.
Essentially Oriental: R.H. Blyth Selection (OOP)
“Honourable Buddhist scholars, who revere Buddha, leave the East and go West. Mr Daruma, who doesn’t like Buddha, leaves the West to come East. I thought they might meet at the Teahouse of Awakening. Alas! It was only a dream” — Gibon Sengai (1750—1837) [The cover features a work by Sengai, monk of the Rinzai school of Zen Buddhism. His subject is Daruma, aka Bodhidharma, semi-legendary monk who reputedly brought Zen (in the form of Mahayana) from India to China in the 5th or 6th century.]
Essentially Oriental presents a thematic overview of Reginald Horace Blyth’s writings on traditional Japanese and other Eastern literatures. It is the first ever representative Blyth selection.
The book contains a rich variety of traditional tales and poems, ranging from Chinese ghost stories and Korean short stories, through Zen parables, to the timeless form of haiku.
Blyth’s illuminating commentary and his essays on history, culture and aesthetics, reflect his quest to understand and experience the poetic life within Eastern culture.
Edited by Kuniyoshi Munakata and Michael Guest for Hokuseido Press, Tokyo (1994), one of the earliest English language publishers in Japan and publisher of Lafcadio Hearn.
The Knight’s Motto by Sylvanus Cobb, Jr.
During the reign of the Emperor Charlemagne, early in the ninth century, an elite Paladin knight escorts a beautiful Bohemian princess into the neighboring kingdom of Moravia. Motives behind the secretive mission unfold as the cavalcade progresses into the domain of the corrupt Moravian king. Assailed by treachery, the Paladin’s mission will reveal not only the indomitable power of love and truth, but also the ethical and humanitarian nature of authentic leadership.
The Knight’s Motto exemplifies Cobb’s high moral compass as a writer, and his genius in telling a cracking good yarn. One of his very last novels, it reflects the author’s infatuation with European romance, inspired by his youthful tour of the Mediterranean with the United States Navy.
The work has been meticulously re-edited, with typographical corrections of the 1887 edition, until now available only in scanned or machine-read copy. Included are an editorial preface and chapter endnotes to clarify archaic and unusual expressions.
Available only in the Kindle version is a biographical essay, “Sylvanus Cobb, Jr.: Tale of his Life and Resurgam” by Michael Guest.
Edited by Michael Guest and Brian Armour.
Furin Chime Press™ 