Sources of Japanese Tradition (Volume I)

Anthology of Japanese Literature: From the Earliest Era to the Mid-Nineteenth Century

Five Women Who Loved Love: Amorous Tales from 17th-Century Japan

"Five charming novellas...which have astonishing freshness, color, and warmth." The New YorkerFirst published in 1686, this collection of five novellas was an immediate bestseller in the bawdy world that was Genroku Japan, and the book's popularity has in

Sources of Chinese Tradition, Vol 1: From Earliest Times to 1600

A collection of seminal primary readings on the social, intellectual, and religious traditions of China, "Sources of Chinese Tradition, Volume 1" has been widely used and praised for almost forty years as an authoritative resource for scholars and student

Sources of Indian Tradition: From the Beginning to 1800

Since 1958 Sources of Indian Tradition has been one of the most important and widely used texts on civilization in South Asia (now the nation-sates of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal). It has helped generations of students and lay reader

Three Plays: Involuntary Homicide / The Green Stockings / The Ghost is Here

Kobo Abe (1924-1993) was one of Japan's most prominent contemporary writers. Born in Japan but raised in Manchuria, he is perhaps best known for his 1962 novel, The Woman in the Dunes, though he was also a prominent screenwriter, producer and director. Li

Four Major Plays of Chikamatsu

Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653-1725) wrote some 130 plays, chiefly for the puppet theater, many of which are still performed today by puppet operators and Kabuki actors. Chikamatsu is thought to have written the first major tragedies about the common man. Thi

Chūshingura (The Treasury of Loyal Retainers): A Puppet Play

Chushingura (The Treasury of Loyal Retainers), also known as the story of the Forty-Six (or Forty-Seven) Ronin, is the most famous and perenially popular of all Japanese dramas. Written around 1748 as a puppet play, it is now better know in Kabuki perform

The Setting Sun

The post-war period in Japan was one of immense social change as Japanese society adjusted to the shock of defeat and to the occupation of Japan by American forces and their allies. Osamu Dazai’s The Setting Sun takes this milieu as its background to te

Five Modern No Plays

Japanese No drama is one of the great art forms that has fascinated people throughout the world. The late Yukio Mishima, one of Japan's outstanding post-war writers, infused new life into the form by using it for plays that preserve the style and inner sp