Mountain/Home

This anthology brings together newly translated Japanese writing spanning the medieval era to the present day. Its selections are arranged to trace how Japan has understood itself over time. Mount Fuji, which has long stood as the nation's most powerful emblem of its spirit, anchors the opening section. Early texts such as the folk tale The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter and the medieval diary Confessions of Lady Nijō appear alongside court verse, and a chapter from Lady Murasaki's The Tale of Genji is followed by haiku from the Edo period by Bashō and Issa.

The collection then turns to the twentieth century, a period of militarism, war, destruction and defeat. Out of that upheaval came fiction by Dazai Osamu and Natsume Sōseki and experimental poetry by Yoshioka Minoru and Ayukawa Nobuo. The final section covers more recent decades, when writers began to explore new literary territory, represented by the experimental fiction of Kurahashi Yumiko and the everyday poetry of Takahashi Mutsuo.