Author: Donald Keene
Publisher: Columbia University Pre
Keywords: chikamatsu, plays, major, four
Number of Pages: 220
Published: 1997-04-15
List price: $24.00
ISBN-10: 0231111010
ISBN-13: 9780231111010

Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653-1725) wrote some 130 plays, chiefly for the puppet theater, many of which are still performed today by puppet operators and Kabuki actors. Chikamatsu is thought to have written the first major tragedies about the common man. This edition of four of his most important plays includes three popular domestic dramas and one history play.

Author: Donald Keene
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Keywords: japan, emperor
Number of Pages: 928
Published: 2002-05-15
List price: $82.50
ISBN-10: 023112340X
ISBN-13: 9780231123402

This is the extraordinary story of how Japan was dramatically transformed during the long reign of Emperor Meiji, from an isolated island nation to one of the five great powers of the world, poised as a rival in Asia to Russia and the European colonial powers.

Author: Donald Keene
Publisher: Grove Press
Keywords: collection, unesco, representative, works, european, century, nineteenth, literature, japanese, earliest, era, mid, anthology
Number of Pages: 448
Published: 1994-01-11
List price: $16.95
ISBN-10: 0802150586
ISBN-13: 9780802150585

The sweep of Japanese literature in all its great variety was made available to Western readers for the first time in this anthology. Every genre and style, from the celebrated No plays to the poetry and novels of the seventeenth century, find a place in this book. An introduction by Donald Keene places the selections in their proper historical context, allowing the readers to enjoy the book both as literature and as a guide to the cultural history of Japan. Selections include “Man’yoshu” or “Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves” from the ancient period; “Kokinshu” or “Collection

Author: Donald Keene
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Keywords: japanese, literature, history, vol, era, modern, dawn, west
Number of Pages: 698
Published: 1999-05-15
List price: $105.00
ISBN-10: 0231114389
ISBN-13: 9780231114387

-- Los Angeles Times

Author: Donald Keene
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Keywords: ages, hundred, travelers
Number of Pages: 480
Published: 1999-05-15
List price: $32.00
ISBN-10: 0231114370
ISBN-13: 9780231114370

At once an intimate account of the diarists’ lives and a testimony to the greater struggles and advances of Japanese culture, this book illuminates the hidden and largely unknown worlds of imperial courts, Buddhist monasteries, country inns, and merchants’ houses.

Author: Donald Keene
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Keywords: novelists, japanese, modern, five
Number of Pages: 144
Published: 2005-06-30
List price: $24.00
ISBN-10: 0231126115
ISBN-13: 9780231126113

The New Yorker has called Donald Keene "America’s preeminent scholar of Japanese literature." Now he presents a new book that serves as both a superb introduction to modern Japanese fiction and a memoir of his own lifelong love affair with Japanese literature and culture. Five Modern Japanese Novelistsprofiles five prominent writers whom Donald Keene knew personally: Tanizaki Jun’ichiro, Kawabata Yasunari, Mishima Yukio, Abe Ko¯bo¯, and Shiba Ryo¯taro¯. Keene masterfully blends vignettes describing his personal encounters with these famous men with autobiographical observatio

Author: Donald Keene
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Keywords: bunraku
Number of Pages: 199
Published: 1990-04-15
List price: $30.00
ISBN-10: 0231074190
ISBN-13: 9780231074193

Donald Keene combines informative works on two forms of classical Japanese theater into a single volume. The No text looks at all aspects of this traditional theater form including its history, its stage and props, the use of music and dance in its performances, the plays as literature, and the aesthetics of No. Also discussed are Kyogen, the comic farces that are typically interspersed with the solemn No dramas.