Alexander Vovin

Man'yoshu (Book 17) Alexander Vovin

Book seventeen of the Man'yosh ('Anthology of Myriad Leaves') continues Alexander Vovin's new English translation of this 20-volume work originally compiled between c.759 and 782 AD. It is the earliest Japanese poetic anthology in existence and thus the most important compendium of Japanese culture of the Asuka and Nara periods. Book seventeen is the fifth volume of the Man'yosh to be published to date (following books fifteen (2009), five (2011), fourteen (2012) and twenty (2013)). Each volume of the Vovin translation contains the original text, kana transliteration, romanization, glossing and commentary.