At the House of Gathered Leaves: Shorter Biographical and Autobiographical Narratives from Japanese Court Literature

This collection of Japanese women’s diary literature (nikki bungaku) begins with The Takemitsu Journal (also known as The Tale of the Tōnomine Lesser Captain, c. 962), an important precursor and model for the famous Kagerō Diary, and Tales of Toyokage (c. 971), a fictionalized reworking of his own poems by Regent Koremasa himself. It also includes the first complete English translations of the Hon’in no Jiju and of the narrative section of The Collected Poems of Lady Ise. The volume concludes with the Tales of Takamura (1185-1333), which Mostow describes as a site of struggle between masculine and feminine narrative styles.

• Joshua S. Mostow, Author

  Joshua S. Mostow is professor in the Department of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.