Ihara Saikaku (1642–1693)
The writer Ihara Saikaku began his career as a haikai poet and brought much of the light-hearted wordplay and free association of that genre into his fiction. His works capture the urban culture of Edo and its coarse energy. The Life of an Amorous Man is the first ukiyo zôshi (novel of the floating world), and Saikaku is regarded as one of the most important writers of that genre in Japan. The Life of an Amorous Man follows the life of its hero Yonosuke, whose name means “man of the world”, as he seeks pleasures of every kind in the more dubious quarters of Japanese cities. This is a facsimile of the first edition, originally published in Osaka in 1862 by Aratoya Magobei Kashin, with pictures thought to be by the author himself.
The Life of an Amorous Man is one of many classic modern Japanese literary works kept in the National and University Library of Iceland. They are fine and beautiful facsimiles, from the beginning of the 8th century to the 20th. The works are a gift from a Japanese couple to the University of Iceland, and the aim of the gift is to encourage young Icelandic students’ interest in Japanese language and culture.
