In his final work Alan Booth takes us on a fascinating journey by foot through three remote regions of Japan to search for the country's geographic and spiritual heart - and for the elusive connections between present and past, self and society. Looking for the Lost is a beautifully written, opinionated, and entertaining look at the life and slow death of a culture, and a poignant self-portrait of a writer also nearing death. Booth's journeys begin in the far north, in the homeland of modern Japan's most famous outcast, the decadent novelist Osamu Dazai. His often hilarious encounters in the towns along the lonely, underdeveloped coast where Dazai grew up reveal a region caught between change and tradition, where the effects of Japan's economic miracle are only now being felt. Booth then explores the tangled wilds of southern Kyushu - the battlegrounds where Saigo Takamori, one of Japan's most-loved tragic heroes, led his small rebel army in a futile last stand against overwhelming government forces in 1877. Finally he turns to the mountains and rivers in central Japan where the Heike clan, defeated by the Genji in the epochal twelfth-century civil war, were said to have dispersed. The bloody fall of the Heike marked the decline of refined court culture, an aristocratic golden age that Japan still clings to, however tenuously, in a time of love hotels, tourist traps, and industrial sprawl.

亞蘭·布斯 (Alan Booth) 一九四六年齣生於倫敦東區，年僅十歲時，便已幾乎熟讀莎士比亞作品。他於伯明罕大學（Birmingham University）主攻戲劇，畢業後，應聘於倫敦莎士比亞中心，兼任演員和中心主任。 一九六０年代，戲劇作為儀式的概念蔚為風尚。布 斯因此於一九七０年前往日本，研究能劇。旅日後，布斯對能劇逐漸喪失興趣，反而為日本所強烈吸引。他亦發現自己的寫作長纔。二十年來，他定期為數本在日發行的英文刊物，撰寫有關日本電影或社會政治議題的評論專文。於此期間，他的日文愈見嫻熟，日本經典民謠與演歌皆能朗朗上口，使日本人大為嘆服。布斯喜歡至日本僻遠之處旅行，造訪鄉野旅館，與當地居民深談，和老闆一起暢飲啤酒。他以幽默尖酸的筆觸風格，記下這些冒險。《佐多行腳》首版發行於一九八六年，立即成為經典之作，並使布斯聞名遐邇。 一九九三年，布斯不幸因結腸癌，留下愛妻素珍（Su-chzeng，音譯）和摯女未來（Mirai），撒手人間。他另一本主要作品，《尋找失落的日本》（Looking for the Lost）亦由講談社國際書庫齣版。