Just Living: Poems and Prose of the Japanese Monk Tonna (Translations from the Asian Classics)

One of the best scholar-translators in the field presents a selection of writings by Tonna (1289–1372), an outstanding medieval Buddhist poet-monk, very little of whose work has been translated until now. Tonna was regarded as the leading Nijo poet of his day and was known as one of the Four Deva Kings of the Waka. This anthology contains translations of 134 uta, 16 linked-verse couplets, and selections from a prose narrative, From a Frog at the Bottom of a Well, along with an introduction and explanatory notes, a glossary of important names and places, and a list of sources for the poems.