Japan’s southernmost prefecture, Okinawa, hosts a concentration of US military bases unlike anywhere outside the continental United States. More than half the 50,000 US troops stationed in Japan are based here. Hotel Okinawa looks at this unique world “on base” and off, separate and yet conjoined, the result of decades of living in close proximity with the US military. Additionally, archival photographs, periodicals and other artefacts, some dating back to the US occupation, appear throughout the book, registering historical strands that are part of the complex fabric of Okinawa today.

Greg Girard is a Canadian photographer whose work has examined the transformations of the social and physical landscape in Asia where he has lived, worked and travelled for more than four decades. He has produced a number of books on cities in Asia, most notably “City of Darkness” and “City of Darkness Revisited”, about Hong Kong’s infamous Kowloon Walled City; and the monographs “Phantom Shanghai” and “Hanoi Calling”.