Try Saying You’re Alive!: Kazuki Tomokawa in His Own Words

A memoir by Kawasaki-based writer and musician Kazuki Tomokawa this title offers a semi-fictionalised account of the vibrant Tokyo underground that he has been at the centre of since the 1970s. Recounting 40 years in the life of this 'screaming philosopher', it traces Tomokawa’s early life in the Akita Prefecture as a 'runaway toddler', his adolescent basketball career, and his wanderings as a day labourer, gambler, painter, actor, drinker and avant-garde folk guitarist.Anecdotes of figures such as novelist Kenji Nakagami, poet Shuji Terayama, actor Tôru Yuri, directors Takashi Miike and Nagisa Oshima, and musicians Ryudo Uzaki and Kan Mikami animate this impassioned memoir by a legendary musician. This is the first English translation of Tomokawa’s writing and it coincides with Blank Forms’ reissue of his first three albums: Finally, His First Album (1975), Straight from the Throat (1976) and A String of Paper Cranes Clenched Between My Teeth (1977).
ISBN 9781953691033. Blank Forms Editions. pb. 256 pages. 13 x 19 cm.
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