In The Distant Isle, fifteen former students honor their mentor, the late Robert H. Brower, with this memorial collection of essays and translations focusing on Japanese literature. Roughly two-thirds of the papers collected here are concerned with the languages and literatures of "premodern" Japan. The other third concern "modern" Japanese language and literature. Although Professor Brower rarely published outside the field of his own expertise in waka poetry, he inspired his students to a diversity of interests and critical approaches, as these articles demonstrate.

Contributors include: Robert Borgen, Steven D. Carter, Anthony H. Chambers, Edwin A. Cranston, Gary DeCoker, Charles Fox, Janet Goff, Thomas Hare, T. J. Harper, Marvin Marcus, Robert E. Morrell, Clinton D. Morrison, Sharalyn Orbaugh, Charles J. Quinn, Jr., and Laurel Rasplica Rodd.