Alexander Vovin

Man'yoshu (Book 18) Alexander Vovin

Book eighteen of the Man'yoshu ('Anthology of Myriad Leaves') continues Alexander Vovin's new English translation of this 20-volume work originally compiled between c.759 and 785 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 eighteen is the sixth volume of the Man'yoshu to be published to date (following books fifteen (2009), five (2011), fourteen (2012), twenty (2013) and seventeen (2016). Each volume of the Vovin translation contains the original text, kana transliteration, romanization, glossing and commentary.