Eric Madeen is an associate professor of modern literature at Tokyo City University and an adjunct professor at Keio University. He's an award-winning, unclassifiable author of six books, and his writing has been published widely -- in Time, Asia Week, The East, Daily Yomiuri, Tokyo Journal, Kyoto Journal, Metropolis, Mississippi Review, ANA's inflight magazine Wingspan, Peace Corps Worldwide, Japanophile, Yomimono, The Pretentious Idea, Tombstone Epitaph, several anthologies, academic journals, therein his seminal essay "Under Western and Eastern Eyes" jointly published by the Ministry of Education of the Western Federation, Russia, and the Joseph Conrad Foundation, USA, and so on.
Madeen has been featured in several radio interviews (9 in the USA and 1 in Japan) and various print media. From a very early age reading and writing have been as natural to him as breathing, and he once made his living copywriting for then-world's largest ad agency Dentsu for clients as diverse as Mazda, Subaru, Canon, Konica, Nikko Hotels International and Sony (Sony No Baloney!).
For two-plus years he was a Peace Corps volunteer in Francophone Gabon, Africa, where he built a primary school complex in an equatorial village surrounded by rainforest, a mind-blowing experience which inspired his first book entitled "Water Drumming in the Soul: A Novel of Racy Love in the Heart of Africa," resonating with the personal and passionate all the way through to the heart-wrenching end. His recently released sixth book "Tokyo-ing! Three Novellas" chimes with anyone even remotely interested in Asia's most dynamic metropolis.
His Japan-immigration novel is set in historically rich Yokohama and entitled "Tennis Clubbed, Snubbed and Rubbity-Dub Dubbed" which challenges an ancient culture's barriers to the "gaijin" or outsider on and off the courts. Prior to that is the high-octane thriller "Massage World." By turns erotic and exotic but always zesty, its plot twists and linkage are tight and full of surprises ... peopled as it is with a rogues' gallery found in the nether reaches of a Dionysian dream. Finally there's the travelogue "Asian Trail Mix: True Tales from Borneo to Japan" which scales down the sprawl of Asia by laser focusing on the unique and revelatory, from novice monks at play in northern Laos to cyclo drivers braving the mean streets of Saigon.
Eric Madeen resides in Yokohama and invites you to drop in on him here: www.ericmadeen.com.
