Motoyuki Shibata still clearly remembers his first encounter with literature in English. He was 12 years old and his English textbook included a modified version of Lafcadio Hearn¡¯s short story, ¡°Mujina.¡± To this day, Shibata remembers the first sentence: ¡°Kinokunizaka was a long slope in Tokyo.¡±
¡°Although I couldn¡¯t articulate it at the time, I heard a whole story in that sentence,¡± says Shibata, 66. ¡°It was completely different from all the other English sentences we had studied before, like ¡®This is a pen.¡¯ It was the first time I thought how fun it would be to read fiction in the English language.¡±
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