The Tale of the Heike - (Paperback)

About the Book

The original samurai saga of pride, romance, and warfare from medieval Japan. An epic story from the fourteenth century about the twelfth--century wars between the Heike and Genji clans, narrated with wit, verve, and compassion, it is a masterpiece of world literature and Japanese culture.

Book Synopsis

From the acclaimed translator of The Tale of Genji, a groundbreaking rendering of Japan's great martial epic

The fourteenth-century Tale of the Heike is Japan's Iliad--a moving depiction of the late twelfth-century wars between the Heike and Genji clans. No work has had a greater impact on later Japanese literature, theater, music, film, and manga--indeed on the Japanese people's sense of their own past. It has also been a major source for medieval-Japan-based fantasy in English. With woodcuts by nineteenth-century artist Teisai Hokuba, a major student of the great Hokusai, Royall Tyler's stunning presentation of this touchstone of Japanese culture recreates the oral epic as it was actually performed and conveys the rich and vigorous language of the original.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Review Quotes

"An elegant new translation [and] an account of a 12th century civil war that is an important historical document as well as a work of great power and beauty."--Los Angeles Times

"Encountering Homer in a vivid translation made Keats feel like an astonished astronomer watching a new planet swim into view. Readers unfamiliar with medieval Japanese literature -- and that must mean most of us -- may feel a kindred excitement on first looking into The Tale of the Heike, in a taut new rendering by Royall Tyler."--The New York Times Book Review

"This modern translation of the Japanese medieval classic tracing the rise and fall of the Taira (Heike) clan reads like the Iliad filtered through Akira Kurosawa, with battlefield panoramas and personal tragedies captured in an exquisitely cinematic narrative...Following his noteworthy translation of The Tale of Genji, Tyler offers accessible language while observing literary tradition in names and format. To help both old hands and newcomers navigate the vibrant yet sometimes arduous masterpiece, he provides an introduction, character list, maps, geneaologies, chronologies, footnotes, and glorious 19th-century illustrations." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)

About the Author

Royall Tyler, an American, is retired from the Australian National University where he taught Japanese language and literature for many years. He has a B.A. from Harvard University and a PhD. from Columbia University and has taught at Harvard, Stanford and the University of Wisconsin.