Rock Spring Collection of Japanese Literature – serie

A masterpiece of quiet lyricism set against a backdrop of change and renewal in suburban Tokyo "A delicate, sad novel that never admits to sadness."—The Atlantic"Junzo Shono, one of Japan's best kept literary secrets, challenges readers to rethink what constitutes a novel... Not unlike the trees, plants, flowers and vegetables that are so central to many of his images, Shono's style is alive and organic in the way it slithers, twists, and turns in an effort to capture the moment."—Persimmon

A luminous translation of the classic Buddhist poem

"Shono conveys both intimacy and distance, tranquility and tension, as he explores the shifting relations between husband and wife, father and son, brother and sister." -Publishers Weekly"These stories are so artful... they seem like the artless productions of life itself." -Kenyon College Book Review -- Kenyon College Book Review"This collection should be sipped and savored like warm sake." -Small PressWinner of the Pen Center West Award, this delicate collection of thirteen linked tales reveals the flow of daily life in the modern Japanese family. Junzo Shono's artful layering of commonplace events, images, and conversations has been compared to haiku poetry crossed with an Ozu film.

Mizue is a Japanese housewife. Kase is a garden designer hired by her husband to landscape their home. As the garden takes shape, Mizue wakens to a new sensuality and desire. A disturbing tale of seduction, based on Japanese aesthetics and the artistic pursuit of destructive beauty.

Thirteen stories are linked by the daily life of a husband and wife and their three children

Matsuo Basho (1644-94) is considered Japan's greatest haiku poet. Narrow Road to the Interior (Oku no Hosomichi) is his masterpiece. Ostensibly a chronological account of the poet's five-month journey in 1689 into the deep country north and west of the old capital, Edo, the work is in fact artful and carefully sculpted, rich in literary and Zen allusion and filled with great insights and vital rhythms. In Basho's Narrow Road: Spring and Autumn Passages, poet and translator Hiroaki Sato presents the complete work in English and examines the threads of history, geography, philosophy, and literature that are woven into Basho's exposition. He details in particular the extent to which Basho relied on the community of writers with whom he traveled and joined in linked verse (renga) poetry sessions, an example of which, A Farewell Gift to Sora, is included in this volume. In explaining how and why Basho made the literary choices he did, Sato shows how the poet was able to transform his passing observations into words that resonate across time and culture.

Japan's capital city of Kyoto was devastated by earthquake, storm, and fire in the late 12th century. Retreating from "this unkind world," the poet and Buddhist priest Kamo-no-Chomei left the capital for the forested mountains, where he eventually constructed his famous "ten-foot-square" hut. From this solitary vantage point Chomei produced Hojoki, an extraordinary literary work that describes all he has seen of human misery and his new life of simple chores, walks, and acts of kindness. Yet at the end he questions his own sanity and the integrity of his purpose. Has he perhaps grown too attached to his detachment?