Basho / Fitzsimons, Andrew (tr.): Basho (HB)

University of California Press, hardcover Publication Date: September 3, 2024 Translated by: Andrew Fitzsimons  Publisher Marketing: A lavish collector's edition of the complete poems of eminent Japanese master of the haiku, Matsuo Bashō. Matsuo Bashō (1644-1694) is arguably the greatest figure in the history of Japanese literature and the master of the haiku. Bashō The Complete Haiku of Matsuo Bashō offers in English a full picture of the haiku of Bashō, 980 poems in all. In Fitzsimons's beautiful rendering, Bashō is much more than a philosopher of the natural world and the leading exponent of a refined Japanese sensibility. He is also a poet of queer love and eroticism; of the city as well as the country, the indoors and the outdoors, travel and staying put; of lonesomeness as well as the desire to be alone. Bashō The Complete Haiku of Matsuo Bashō reveals how this work speaks to our concerns today as much as it captures a Japan emerging from the Middle Ages. For dedicated scholars a