by Mayumi Itoh (Author)
This eighteenth collection of original haikus by the author is a homage to the woodblock print artist, Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-October 1858), who is best known for The Fifty-Three Stations of the Tōkaidō woodblock print series. This collection consists of 119 haikus, made for each of the 119 scenes in Hiroshige's One Hundred Famous Scenes of Edo (the old name for Tokyo). These woodblock masterpieces were Hiroshige's swan song. He began working on this series in February 1856 and continued until his death in October 1858. This is a unique bilingual haiku anthology and presents each haiku in both Japanese and English so that non-Japanese-speaking readers can fully appreciate it. In order to enhance understanding, the identification of the season word of each haiku-an essential element in haiku-as well as the brief cultural and historical backgrounds of the woodblock print and the haiku are given. Enjoy