Kotan Chronicles: Selected Poems 1928-1943

This title is printed to order. This book may have been self-published. If so, we cannot guarantee the quality of the content. In the main most books will have gone through the editing process however some may not. We therefore suggest that you be aware of this before ordering this book. If in doubt check either the author or publisher’s details as we are unable to accept any returns unless they are faulty. Please contact us if you have any questions.

In Kotan Chronicles, Japanese author and activist Genzo Sarashina shares his experience as a second-generation settler in Hokkaido during the 1920s and 1930s. Many of his poems document his encounters with the Ainu, the indigenous people of the island, in an era where the traditional world of the kotan, or Ainu village, was slowly disappearing. Sarashina’s distinctive voice probes the ambiguities of the interaction between the Ainu and the Japanese, while depicting both the beauty of Hokkaido’s landscape and the back-breaking work required of settlers and Ainu alike to survive there in an era of economic hardship. Kotan Chronicles constitutes an exceptional witness of its times.