Tales from All Provinces

Ikhara Saikaku – a recognized classic of Japanese literature, honed the craft of domestic storytelling – wrote in a lively and concise style with intricate inventiveness, featuring bursts of humor and wordplay. The genre range of Saikaku's work is extraordinarily wide. In this book, the reader will find works of different natures – romantic, domestic, magical-fantastical, judicial, and others. Irony, sarcasm, and parodic grotesque are the author's favorite techniques, but in his laughter, one can hear the sadness about the capriciousness of life and human fate.