The Outsider: The Life and Work of Lafcadio Hearn by Steve Kemme

Born in Greece and abandoned as a child, Lafcadio Hearn
lived the life of an exile. He traveled the world and became
a famous writer but always felt like an outsider—in Dublin,
London, Cincinnati, New Orleans and French-speaking
Martinique. To him, none of these places felt like home.
Hearn’s life in America was punctuated by a string of
successes and failures. In Cincinnati he became the city’s
best-known crime reporter but was fired after marrying a black woman. Devastated, he moved to
New Orleans where he championed French Creole and Caribbean culture in pieces for Harper’s and
Scribners—and created a new image for the city as a place of voodoo and debauchery (the image of
New Orleans which many Americans still hold today!).
Hearn arrived in Japan at a time of historic change. Sent there as a correspondent for Harper’s,
his commission was soon terminated over a dispute. Alone and jobless, he settled in the remote
town of Matsue, firmly believing that Japan would provide him with an endless supply of rich writing
material—perhaps enough to last a lifetime. And he was right.
Over the next dozen years, Hearn published fifteen books which were lauded by the likes of Mark
Twain, William Butler Yeats, Albert Einstein and Charlie Chaplin. Hearn’s books on Japan established
his reputation as the leading Western writer on that country—a position he still occupies today.
This book recounts the many colorful episodes in Hearn’s life including:
• His troubled childhood in Ireland and emigration to America with no job or money
• His career as a popular newspaper writer and essayist in Cincinnati and New Orleans,
where he found great success but was never fully accepted
• His journey to Japan where he became a Buddhist, married the daughter of a Samurai,
took a Japanese name and is now considered one of Japan’s leading writers
• Hearn’s growing fame as a writer, especially for his essays and books on ghosts,
demons, monsters and the supernatural realm of Japanese folklore
This book includes a foreword by Bon Koizumi, Hearn’s great-grandson and director of the Lafcadio Hearn Memorial Museum in Matsue, Japan, along with family images which portray the pivotal people and places in Hearn’s extraordinary life.

Steve Kemme is President of the Lafcadio Hearn Society/USA and a former reporter for the
Cincinnati Enquirer, where Hearn formerly worked. He is a member of the Japan Research Center of Greater Cincinnati, has spoken at Hearn symposiums worldwide and is considered a leading expert on Hearn’s life and writings.
Bon Koizumi is Lafcadio Hearn’s great-grandson. He is a professor at the University of Shimane Junior College and director of the Lafcadio Hearn Memorial Museum in Matsue, which is housed in Hearn’s first home in Japan.

$22.99 jacketed hardcover
$29.95 (CAD)
ISBN-13: 978-4-8053-1760-0
September
Literature
Tuttle Publishing
5 1/8 X 8 ● 272 pages
includes 33 color and b&w photos
illustrating topics and places
important in Hearn’s life
• Author available for interviews,
contact:
publicity@tuttlepublishing.com
• Regional author tour