Auf schmalen Pfaden durchs Hinterland

Inhalt

Basho (1644-1694), the most famous Haiku poet of Japan, recorded his many travels around Japan in his journals. Cid Corman's translation of Basho's most mature journal details the most arduous part of a nine-month journey he took with his friend and disciple, Sora, through the backlands north of the capital, west to the Japan Sea, and back toward Kyoto. More than a record of the journey, the journal is a poetic sequence that has become a center of the Japanese mind/heart.