Books by Hiroaki Sato
On Haiku
by Hiroaki Sato
Everything you want to know about haiku written by one of the foremost experts in the field and the “finest translator of contemporary Japanese poetry into American English” (Gary Snyder)
Who doesn’t love haiku? It is not only America’s most popular cultural import from Japan but also our most popular poetic form: instantly recognizable, more mobile than a sonnet, loved for its simplicity and compression, as well as its ease of composition. Haiku is an ancient literary form seemingly made for the Twittersphere―Jack Kerouac and Langston Hughes wrote them, Ezra Pound and the Imagists were inspired by them, Hallmark’s made millions off them, first-grade students across the country still learn to write them. But what really is a haiku? Where does the form originate? Who were the original Japanese poets who wrote them? And how has their work been translated into English over the years? The haiku form comes down to us today as a cliché: a three-line poem of 5-7-5 syllables. And yet its story is actually much more colorful and multifaceted. And of course to write a good one can be as difficult as writing a Homeric epic―or it can materialize in an instant of epic inspiration.
In On Haiku, Hiroaki Sato explores the many styles and genres of haiku on both sides of the Pacific, from the classical haiku of Basho, Issa, and Zen monks, to modern haiku about swimsuits and atomic bombs, to the haiku of famous American writers such as J. D. Salinger and Allen Ginsburg. As if conversing over beers in your favorite pub, Sato explains everything you wanted to know about the haiku in this endearing and pleasurable book, destined to be a classic in the field.
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Forty-Seven Samurai: A Tale of Vengeance & Death in Haiku and Letters
by Hiroaki Sato
A remarkable and true tale of loyalty, vengeance, and ritual suicide. . . . In the spring of 1701, the regional lord Asano Naganori wounded his supervising official, Kira Yoshinaka, during an important ceremony in the ruling shogunate's Edo Castle and was at once condemned to death. Within two years, in the dead of winter, a band of forty-seven of Asano's retainers avenged him by breaking into Yoshinaka’s mansion and killing him. Subsequently, all the men were sentenced to death but allowed to perform it honorably by seppuku.
This incident—often called the Ako Incident—became a symbol of samurai honor andat once prompted stage dramatization in kabuki and puppet theater. It has since has been told and retold in short and long stories, movies, TV dramas. The story has also attracted the attention of foreign writers and translators. The most recent retelling was the 2013 Hollywood film 47 Ronin, with Keanu Reeves, though it was wildly and willfully distorted.
What did actually happen and how has this famous vendetta resonated through history? Hiroaki Sato's examination is a close, comprehensive look at the Ako Incident through the context of its times, portraits of the main protagonists, and its literary legacy in the haiku ofthe avengers. Also included is Sato's new translation of Akutagawa Ryunosuke's short story about leader Oishi Kuranosuke as he awaited sentencing.
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Legends of the Samurai
by Hiroaki Sato
In Legends of the Samurai, Hiroaki Sato confronts both the history and the legend of the samurai, untangling the two to present an authentic picture of these legendary warriors. Through his masterful translations of original samurai tales, laws, dicta, reports, and arguments accompanied by insightful commentary, Sato chronicles the changing ethos of the Japanese warrior from the samurai's historical origins to his rise to political power. A fascinating look at Japanese history as seen through the evolution of the samurai, Legends of the Samurai stands as the ultimate authority on its subject.
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The Iceland (New Directions Poetry Pamphlet)
by Hiroaki Sato, Sakutaro Hagiwara
Proudly part of the New Directions Poetry Pamphlets, a mesmerizing collection by a Japanese forerunner of Modernist poetry Hagiwara writes in the preface: “The author’s past life was that of a disconsolate iceberg that drifts and flows in the extreme regions of the northern seas. Looking at the phantom-like auroras from various spots of the iceberg, he yearned, suffered, rejoiced, sorrowed, at times getting angry with himself, as he wandered on vainly with the tides…. Above his heart were always the disconsolate clouded skies of the extreme regions, the soul-ripping winds of the Iceland howling, screaming. He wrote all that painful life and the diary of a real person in these poems.”
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The Modern Fable (Green Integer)
by Hiroaki Sato, Nishiwaki Junzaburo
One of the most important Japanese poets of the period between 1930 and 1960, Nishiwaki revolutionized the poetry of Japan, introducing surrealism into his work. This translation, by Hiroaki Sato, is Nishiwaki’s masterpiece of 1953.
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$14.95