Genre: Biography/Memoir
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The pillow book of Sei Shonagon
Written by the court gentlewoman Sei Shonagon, ostensibly for her own amusement, The Pillow Book offers a fascinating exploration of life among the nobility at the height of the Heian period, describing the exquisite pleasures of a confined world in which poetry, love, fashion, and whim dominated, while harsh reality was kept firmly at a…
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The pillow book
A translation of the idiosyncratic diary of a C10 court lady in Heian Japan. Along with the Tale of Genji, it is one of the major Japanese classics.
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The Ten Foot Square Hut and Tales of the Heike
Readers of medieval Japanese literature have long been captivated by its romance and philosophy. In this volume, two acclaimed thirteenth century classics, The Ten Foot Square Hut and Tales of the Heike, are presented in translation. The Ten Foot Square Hut offers the memorable reflections of a recluse who retired from a world filled with…
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Hojoki : visions of a torn world
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…
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The hojoki
Christmas cards.
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Narrow road to the interior
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Narrow road to the interior and other writings
The most complete single-volume collection of the writings of one of the great luminaries of Asian literature. Basho (1644-1694) – who elevated the haiku to an art form of utter simplicity and intense spiritual beauty – is best known in the West as the author of Narrow Road to the Interior, a travel diary of…
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Basho’s Narrow road : spring & autumn passages : two works
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…
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Notebook of a ten square rush-mat sized world : a fugitive essay written in the year 1212
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As I crossed a bridge of dreams : recollections of a woman in eleventh-century Japan
A Lady-in-waiting at a Heian court in medieval Japan records her personal feelings and reactions to social standards. Its shy and vulnerable author found happiness neither in her work at court nor with her family, and projected into her writing veiled longings that are both timeless and poignant.