"Hiroaki Sato weaves a rich portrait of a paradoxical society governed by value systems vastly different to our own."
Thanks to Damian Flanagan at The Japan Times for covering Hiroaki Sato's take on "one of Japan’s most sprawling and endlessly intriguing of bloody epics."
He continues, "The bare historical facts of the 47 samurai saga are incredible and thrilling.. One day in the spring of 1701, Asano Naganori, a minor daimyo charged with making the arrangements for the reception of the imperial emissary, suddenly rushed at Kira Yoshinaka, the shogunal advisor on etiquette, in Edo Castle and swung at him with a short sword — injuring but not killing him — before being restrained.
By nightfall Asano had been ordered to commit seppuku for his breach of etiquette, setting in train a course of events that would engulf hundreds of lives, leaving scores dead and wounded, and creating one of the greatest sagas of Japanese feudal loyalty and revenge."
Read the full review here: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2019/11/16/books/forty-seven-samurai-paradoxical-account-bloody-revenge-haiku-poetry/#.XdL41VdKiMq
Grab your copy of The Forty-Seven Samurai: A Tale of Vengeance and Death in Haiku and Letters here: https://www.stonebridge.com/catalog/forty-seven-samurai-a-tale-of-vengeance-and-suicide-in-haiku-and-letters