Five Women Who Loved Love

Amorous Tales from 17th-Century Japan

Ihara Saikaku

$22.99

Paperback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

Availability Information

We source books from suppliers in Australia and overseas. For books we don't currently have in stock, the time it takes to get them from our suppliers can vary widely - from a few days to a few months - so we check each book with each supplier to determine the expected time it will take to be supplied to us.

We then advise you accordingly. If the time taken to get any book is too long for you, you can let us know and we will cancel or adjust your order, and refund as required.

To find out the anticipated arrival time for specific items prior to ordering, please contact us by phone or email:

Phone +61 2 9264 3111, or 1800 4 BOOKS (1800 4 26657) if outside Sydney:
option 1 Abbey's Bookshop (Crime, History, Science, Kids & more) • info@abbeys.com.au
option 2 Language Book Centre (ESL & Foreign Languages) • language@abbeys.com.au
option 3 Galaxy Bookshop (Sci-fi, Fantasy, Romance, Graphic Novels) • sf@galaxybooks.com.au

QTY:

English

Tuttle
01 March 2017

Literature, Poetry & Criticism; Anthologies (non-poetry)

Series: Tuttle Classics

First published in 1686, Five Women Who Loved Love was an immediate bestseller in the bawdy, life-loving world that was Genroku Japan. And the novel’s popularity has, if anything, increased with the years, making it today a classic like Boccaccio’s Decameron or the writings of Rabelais.

The book follows five determined women in their always amorous and usually illicit adventures. The five heroines are Onatsu, already wise in the ways of love by the age of sixteen; Osen, a faithful wife until unjustly accused of adultery; Osan, a Kyoto beauty who falls asleep in the wrong bed; Oshichi, willing to burn down a city to meet her samurai lover; and Oman, who has to compete with handsome boys to win her lover’s affections.

But the book is more than a collection of skillfully told erotic tales, for, as the translator points out in the introduction, “Saikaku ... could not delve into the inmost secrets of human life only to expose them to ridicule or snickering prurience. Obviously fascinated by the variety and complexity of human love, but retaining always a sense of its intrinsic dignity ... he is both a discriminating and compassionate judge of his fellow men.”

Saikaku’s style, as allusive as it is witty, as abbreviated as it is penetrating, is a challenge that few translators have dared face, and certainly never before with the success here achieved in a translation that recaptures the heady flavor of the original.

By: Ihara Saikaku
Imprint: Tuttle
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 203mm, Width: 130mm, Spine: 18mm
Weight: 312g
ISBN: 9784805310120
ISBN 10: 480531012X
Series: Tuttle Classics
Pages: 272
Publication Date: 01 March 2017
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

<b>Ihara Saikaku</b> (1641-1693) has been called the greatest popular Japanese novelist of the 17th century. Also a poet, Saikaku founded the ukiyo-zoshi (books of the floating world) genre, which flourished between the 1680s and the 1770s. <b>Wm. Theodore de Bary</b> (born August 9, 1919), is an American sinologist and East Asian literature scholar who has edited numerous books relating to primarily Japanese and Chinese literature, history and culture. He is recognized as essentially creating the field of Neo-Confucian studies.