Not to Be Taken Lightly

Someone, please, we need to translate Shinichiro Nakamura's works into English. He is too great to remain unknown outside of Japan, although he is also not terribly well known there. And his greatness is not immediately apprehensible. That fact adds to his greatness, as corny as that may sound, and does set him apart from the likes of, I must say, Mishima, Murakami, Tanizaki, etc.

The image below is taken from Nakamura's preparatory notes for his books on Edo kanshibun (early modern Japanese literary and philosophical texts composed in the Chinese style), including The Traffic of Clouds, Sanyo Rai and His Epoch, Horti Poetae (Poet's Garden), and Kenkado Kimura's Salon.

(Photo courtesy of the National Institute of Japanese Literature)