Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2017 -

Keene (Columbia Univ.), the doyen of Japanese literary studies, offers here a literary history of poet Ishikawa Takuboku (1886-1912). Ishikawa's seminal collection of tanka, A Handful of Sand (1910), is known for a modernist aesthetic that combines "simplicity and hidden meaning." Keene embeds translations of Ishikawa's poetry, including Japanese transliteration, throughout the study, thus enhancing the reader's appreciation of the poet's modernist sensibility. Keene reconstructs Ishikawa's life through his diaries (including what the poet called his "diary in Roman letters"), his letters, and the historical context of his other works: short stories, novels, and essays. The cultural context Keene offers provides a glimpse into the fascinating complexities of the struggling new Japanese literary culture of the Meiji era. Ishikawa's life makes for painful reading. The brilliant son of a Zen priest poet, he failed to thrive financially due to his nonconformist nature: the very thing that made him "modern." Ishikawa died of tuberculosis at the age of 26, but toward the end of his life he achieved fame as a publisher, editor, literary critic, poet, and diarist.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above; general readers.

A narrative history covering the years 722-468 BCE, the Zuozhuan was arranged to form a commentary to The Spring and Autumn Annals, the laconic chronology traditionally attributed to Confucius himself. Its importance for the study of this crucial period and for how history was to be understood and recorded cannot be exaggerated. In addition to being a canonical historical text, the Zuozhuan also substantially influenced China's literary language and style. It is a text that all serious students will want and need to peruse, though only specialists are likely to read it from beginning to end. Like history itself, some sections of the Zuozhuan are more lively and vivid than others. Beginning with an excellent introduction, this translation by a dream trio of learned and linguistically gifted scholars is both user-friendly and thoroughly scholarly. Throughout, helpful summations guide the reader through the rocky waters of turbulent times and frequently choppy text. The Chinese text of both the Zuozhuan and the Annals, along with the translators' notes, is printed on pages facing the translation, which will earn the gratitude of specialists as well as neophytes. This is a major scholarly achievement.Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.