Peter Shaw has been at various times a teacher, journalist, music critic, radio broadcaster, art curator and writer. Peter taught design history at UNITEC, Auckland and then spent over twenty years as the Fletcher Trust Art Collection curator.
His History of New Zealand Architecture was first published in 1991 and went into three editions. He has designed exhibitions and written many art and ceramics catalogues as well as books on Waitangi and the architecture of Napier and Hastings.
An accidental tourist to Japan in 1989, his curiosity about the country was awakened and in succeeding years he has made repeated visits, the result of which is this book. Peter talks to NZ Booklovers.
Tell us a little about Japan: An Autobiography.
I’d kept diaries of all my trips as a way of keeping track of all the specific places I’d visited rather them having them all congealed into a kind of forgettable blancmange. When I read what I’d scribbled down, I was happy to find that I was able to recall vividly what I’d experienced. I thought others might like to read some of it.
What inspired you to write this book?
The questions people wanting to go to Japan constantly asked me.
What research was involved?
Over twenty years of travel and a great deal of reading to try to clarify the hundreds of fascinating and beautiful things I saw but did not understand.
What was your routine or process when writing this book?
Just the usual one for writers: get up in the morning, clear a decent amount of time, and then just get down to it. Keep interruptions to a minimum. Have a notebook beside the bed to jot down midnight thoughts. Live with someone who can tolerate being read snippets and answer the constant question, “But is it interesting?
If a soundtrack were made to accompany this book, name a song or two you would include.
Well, some of the piano music Claude Debussy was inspired to write, having had contact with the pictures and sounds of Japan and other eastern countries. And the music of the Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu. It’s all in the book.
What do you hope readers will take away from reading Japan: An Autobiography?
A sense of enjoyment while reading it and the desire to know more about a fascinating country.
What did you enjoy the most about writing this book?
Trying to fit years of my photos into the text. The best part was working with my colleagues at Inhouse, Arch and Jane, whose unerring instinct for what would look best never ceases to amaze me.
What did you do to celebrate finishing this book?
Ask any writer, and they’ll tell you that the moment you think you have finished, there’s always something to tinker with. I ‘finished’ so many times. A glass of chilled dry sake goes down well on such occasions, I find.
What is the favourite book you have read so far this year and why?
Goodbye Russia; Rachmaninoff in Exile by Fiona Maddocks. A sad but intriguing book about the life of the great composer after he left Russia in 1917. There are so many refugees and others who are now living in exile, and I, as a secure citizen of Aotearoa/New Zealand, had never properly thought about its effect.
What’s next on the agenda for you?
Going back to Japan for three weeks and trying to stop myself thinking about writing a sequel to this book.