The dramatic climax of the SEA OF FERTILITY, bringing together the dominant themes of the three previous novels; the decay of Japan's courtly tradition and samurai ideal, and the essence and value of
The first novel of Mishima's landmark tetralogy, The Sea of fertilitySpring Snow is set in Tokyo in 1912, when the hermetic world of the ancient aristocracy is being breached for the first time by outsiders -- rich provincial families unburdened by tradition, whose money and vitality make them formidable contenders for social and political power.Among this rising new elite are the ambitious Matsugae, whose son has been raised in a family of the waning aristocracy, the elegant and attenuated Ayakura. Coming of age, he is caught up in the tensions between old and new -- fiercely loving and hating the exquisite, spirited Ayakura Satoko. He suffers in psychic paralysis until the shock of her engagement to a royal prince shows him the magnitude of his passion, and leads to a love affair that is as doomed as it was inevitable.
"... the most comprehensive book of translation of this period in any Western language." —Journal of the Chinese Language Teachers Association"... a welcome addition to the
Winner of the prestigious Mainichi Shuppan Bunkasho prize, and the subject of an acclaimed film by Ichikawa Kon, Harp of Burma is the story of a company of Japanese soldiers who are losing a desperat
Despite periods of heavy censorship and political opposition, science fiction has emerged in the People's Republic of China as a popular literary genre. This anthology of stories by six major Chinese
The thirteen stories of Dialogues in Paradise are eloquent in a way the West associates with both the modern and the ancient: the dark oracles of Aeschylus and Sophocles, the paranoid mystery of Kafka
Tu Fu radically altered poetry as he found it in the High T’ang period. In addition to making formal innovations in language and structure, he extended the range of acceptable subject matter to includ
The Three Cornered World is the novelistic expression of the contrast between the Western ethical view of reality and the Eastern ethical view by one of Japan's most beloved authors. Natsume Soseki te
A record of the words and teachings of Confucius, "The Analects" is considered the most reliable expression of Confucian thought. However, the original meaning of Confucius's teachings have been filte
Although their Mongol overlords (beginning with the founding of the Yuan dynasty by Kublai Khan in 1280) tyrannized the Chinese in nearly every area of life, the arts enjoyed a new-found freedom. On
Jonathan Chaves makes available a vast store of rich and significant poems by both major and minor poets from China's last three dynasties. Featured are poems from the Yuan dynasty, which range from q
"This remarkable anthology of . . . plays is a harbinger of a new age in Japanese theatre studies and will be considered a pivotal work in the future. . . . The closing essay by editor Karen Brazell o
|Black Rain is centered around the story of a young woman who was caught in the radioactive "black rain" that fell after the bombing of Hiroshima. lbuse bases his tale on real-life diaries and interv
