Best of
Japanese-Literature
1977
100万回生きたねこ
Yoko Sano - 1977
A touching portrait of one cat's lives and deaths, owners and lovers.An arrogant cat is reincarnated many times to many loving owners, but he cannot reciprocate until he learns to love another more than himself.
Women Poets of Japan
Ikuko Atsumi - 1977
Staring with the Classical Period (645-1604 A.D.), characterized by the wanka and tanka styles,followed by haiku poets of the Tokugawa period (to 1867), the subsequent modern tanka and haiku poets,and including the contemporary school of free verse—Women Poets of Japan records twelve hundred years of poetic accomplishment. Included are biographical notes on the individual poets, an essay on Japanese women and literature, and a table of historical periods.
Ryōkan: Zen Monk-Poet of Japan
Ryōkan - 1977
Though a Zen master, he never headed a temple but chose to live alone in simple huts and to support himself by begging. His poems are mainly a record of his daily activitiesof chores, lonely snowbound winters, begging expeditions to town, meetings with friends, romps with the village children. At the same time they show us how rich a spiritual and intellectual life a man could enjoy in the midst of poverty.
The Glass Rabbit
Toshiko Takagi - 1977
Her father is a respected and skilled glass craftsmen so the family makes a good living. However, the Ei family soon finds itself having to suffer through many tragic hardships as a result of World War II.
Snow Country & Thousand Cranes
Yasunari Kawabata - 1977
Snow Mountain is a nuanced love story involving a discouraged urbanite (Shimamura) and a rural geisha (Komako). Shimamura is tired of the bustling city. He takes the train through the snow to the mountains of the west coast of Japan, to meet with a geisha he believes he loves. Beautiful and innocent, Komako is tightly bound by the rules of a rural geisha, and lives a life of servitude and seclusion that is alien to Shimamura, and their love offers no freedom to either of them. Thousand Cranes is another love story. This melancholy tale uses the classical tea ceremony as a background for the story of a young man's relationships to two women, his father's former mistress and her daughter.
Contemporary Japanese Literature: An Anthology of Fiction, Film, and Other Writing Since 1945
Howard Hibbett - 1977
The Incident at Sakai and Other Stories
Ōgai Mori - 1977