Ishiyasan = Stone dealer
By: Kuwahara Mariko
Publisher: Tōchipuresu
Published: 2016
Place of publication: Tōkyō
Language: jpn
Number of pages: 243
ISBN-13: 9784907562076
Subjects: Social life and customs; Stone industry and trade; Ishi(Kanshōyō)
Other titles: Stone dealer
Description: The town of Onishi lies roughly 100 kilometres to the north-west of Tokyo, where legend has it that a troll who once lived on a nearby mountain threw a big stone down the mountain; people started to call the place where it landed "Onishi". Mariko Kuwahara spent time there talking with local inhabitants and photographing the stones and rocky landscapes she found. The people who made the deepest impression on her were the men called 'Ishiya-san' (stone dealers). On its surface, this book is a document of her conversations with them, yet underneath it is a story of disappearing towns and villages in Japan, of dialects soon to be lost, and ways of life in danger of being forgotten.
Notes: Japanese and English.