Evropan & Japonci – Strun pojednn o protikladech a rozdlech Fris Lus (2022)

This Czech-language edition presents a concise Portuguese manuscript by Lus Fris (15321597), a first-generation Jesuit missionary who spent more than thirty years in Japan and wrote an extensive historical work about the country. Written in 1585, the manuscript waited almost four centuries for publication until Friss fellow Jesuit Josef Franz Schtte discovered it in a Madrid library; it was first published in 1955 by a Jesuit university in Tokyo, together with an illuminating commentary and a parallel German translation. Originally a didactic Jesuit guide intended to ease European missionaries cultural shock in their encounters with the Japanese world, it is now considered the first systematic comparison of European and Japanese civilisation. Above all, it offers an irresistible portrait of Europe facing a mirror of otherness, reflecting an inverted yet equal image of itself.