September 26, 1904. Lafcadio Hearn died in Tokyo. There was a symposium today at Waseda University to commemorate this. Maryse Conde of Guadeloupe gave a conference on exoticism and diasporic literatures, discussing Edwidge Danticat and Oscar Hijueros, among others. Then the Irish ambassador to Japan gave a speech. This is so funny as Hearn is almost a non-Irish! The ambassador was right in pointing out that Hearn was exotic to anybody, any place.
Had lunch later with Maryse, promised to meet again in Perth, Australia, next year. Always joyful and sensitive, she's a person whose strength of soul radiates. Richard, her husband, has finished his new translation of Frantz Fanon's Peau noire, masques blancs. It will be prefaced by Homi Bhaba and will be out any time now.
