Travel WritingsMatsuo BashoLabel: Hackett Publishing Co IncDescription: The travel writings of Matsuo Bashō are of enormous literary importance and so it is a joy to see them collected in this compact volume in translations of exemplary elegance faithfulness and accessibility. The annotations are especially valuable: they show a solid grasp of the author’s life work and times and provide rich and detailed background information about allusions to Chinese and Japanese classics. Along with the high quality of the translations themselves this thorough commentary makes the book a significant scholarly resource and will help readers appreciate the density and delicacy of Bashō’s writing. A very welcome addition to the English-language literature on one of the central poets of the Japanese tradition. —David B. Lurie Columbia University
