The Tales of the Heike by Haruo Shirane

The Tales of the Heike by Haruo Shirane

The Tales of the Heike is one of the most influential works in Japanese literature and culture, remaining even today a crucial source for fiction, drama, and popular media. Originally written in the mid-thirteenth century, it features a cast of vivid characters and chronicles the epic Genpei war, a civil conflict that marked the end of the power of the Heike and changed the course of Japanese history. The Tales of the Heike focuses on the lives of both the samurai warriors who fought for two powerful twelfth-century Japanese clans-the Heike (Taira) and the Genji (Minamoto)-and the women with whom they were intimately connected. The Tales of the Heike provides a dramatic window onto the emerging world of the medieval samurai and recounts in absorbing detail the chaos of the battlefield, the intrigue of the imperial court, and the gradual loss of a courtly tradition. The book is also highly religious and Buddhist in its orientation, taking up such issues as impermanence, karmic retribution, attachment, and renunciation, which dominated the Japanese imagination in the medieval period. In this new, abridged translation, Burton Watson offers a gripping rendering of the work's most memorable episodes. Particular to this translation are the introduction by Haruo Shirane, the woodblock illustrations, a glossary of characters, and an extended bibliography.

Terrifically exciting and spiritually richKirkus Reviews Watson's is... the best of the translations. -- Donald Richie The Japan Times One of the great literary classics. -- Keith Garebian The Globe and Mail An excellent translation and a welcome contribution to the field -- Matthew Stavros Japanese Studies

Haruo Shirane is Shincho Professor of Japanese literature at Columbia University. He is the author and editor of numerous books on Japanese literature, including, most recently, Envisioning The Tale of Genji: Media, Gender, and Cultural Production; Traditional Japanese Literature: An Anthology, Beginnings to 1600; Early Modern Japanese Literature: An Anthology, 1600-1900; and Classical Japanese: A Grammar.

Burton Watson has taught at Columbia, Stanford, and Kyoto Universities and is one of the world's best-known translators of Chinese and Japanese works. His translations include The Analects of Confucius, The Tales of the Heike, and The Lotus Sutra; the writings of Zhuangzi, Mozi, Xunzi, and Han Feizi; The Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry; and Records of the Grand Historian.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780231138031
ISBN 10	0231138032
Title	The Tales of the Heike
Author	Haruo Shirane
Series	Translations From The Asian Classics
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Columbia University Press
Year published	2008-03-19
Number of pages	232
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.