Hiroaki Sato's newly published deep-dive into the remarkable and true tale of loyalty, vengeance, and ritual suicide has now been reviewed by Dr. John Butler for the Asian Review of Books.
"Hiroaki Sato, a poet, author of Legends of the Samurai (where he first retells this story) and the PEN award-winning translator of many Japanese writers including Princess Shikishi, Yukio Mishima and Kenji Miyazawa, does something which others have not attempted, namely to provide more than just an accurate historical account of the event and its aftermath. Sato allows the participants to speak in their own words through their own haiku and letters, which immediately renders them three-dimensional and thoroughly human."
—The Asian Review of Books
Read the full review here.
Pick up a copy of Forty-Seven Samurai by Hiroaki Sato here.