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David McNeill

David McNeill

David McNeill (PhD) is a professor at the Department of English Language, Communication and Cultures at Sacred Heart University in Tokyo. He was previously a correspondent for The Independent and The

Don’t Look Back; an asylum story with hard lessons for Japan

Don’t Look Back; an asylum story with hard lessons for Japan

Gloria Onyekweli came to Japan just before Christmas in 2006, claiming asylum from her native Nigeria. She left her homeland after she said her fiancé, a political activist caught up in the Biafran separatist movement, was killed by the government. When she was told she was being sought by the

Fishing boats left in the aftermath of the Great East Japan Earthquake

Ten Years Later: Fukushima continues rebuilding after 3.11 disaster

Residents remember and cautiously contemplate the future as parts of the region are still off-limits after a powerful earthquake triggered calamity. Ten years ago, Sakurai Katsunobu began another working day as mayor of Minamisoma, a small coastal city in Fukushima Prefecture. By evening, 400 of his constituents would be dead,

Fukushima, 10 years on - An interview with former Prime Minister Naoto Kan

Fukushima, 10 years on - An interview with former Prime Minister Naoto Kan

Naoto Kan was prime minister of Japan during the 2011 crisis. An engineering graduate of the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Kan was a contemporary at the university of many future nuclear engineers, including Masao Yoshida, manager of the Fukushima Daiichi plant during the disaster. While in office, Kan broke with

Prizewinning writers help to bridge Japan's gender gap

Prizewinning writers help to bridge Japan's gender gap

Compelling women’s fiction in Japan hardly began with its two brightest contemporary stars, Mieko Kawakami and Sayaka Murata. Yoko Tawada won the Akutagawa Prize back in 1993 and her work is widely read outside Japan (Tawada has long lived in Germany and writes in German and Japanese). Yoko Ogawa

Baby Blues: Japan's fertility crisis

Baby Blues: Japan's fertility crisis

Two decades ago, journalists in Japan were warned off covering Princess Masako’s visits to fertility doctors. The wife of the future emperor, then in her late thirties, was being nudged to produce an heir to the Chrysanthemum Throne. Foreign newspapers, under less pressure to observe the taboos on reporting