Alex Kerr is an environmentalist, travel writer and restorer of old Japanese houses. Born in Bethesda, Maryland, he came to Japan with his family as a child and has been based in Kameoka, near Kyoto, since 1977. He studied Japanese at Yale University, Chinese as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, and has also travelled extensively and written about Southeast Asia. Starting with "Chiiori," a 300-year old thatched roofed house in Iya Valley, Shikoku, which he bought while still in college in 1973, he has gone on to restore over forty old houses around Japan. He writes and speaks widely in Japanese as well as in English on rural revival and town planning, sustainable tourism, Japanese art and landscape. For his work he has been appointed a "Visit Japan Ambassador" and received the "Agency for Cultural Affairs Commissioner's Commendation." Kerr's books include Lost Japan (1993), Dogs and Demons (2001), Living in Japan (2006), Theory of Japanese Landscape (2014), Another Kyoto (2016), Finding the Heart Sutra (2020), Japan Pilgrimage (2020), and Another Bangkok (2021). Kerr's passions are also documented in his TED talks, including The Secrets of Things, 2021, Rural Revival Using What's on Hand, 2019, and New Life for Old Towns through Sustainable Tourism, 2013.
