Saito Mokichi is an accomplished singer in the modern Japanese literary world and is hailed as the "Sage of Modern Singers" by future generations. He was both a poet and author and a renowned psychiatrist.
In the early days, Mokichi transformed the singing style of "Man'yoshu" and Western culture into the flesh and blood of his tanka. His works are full of affirmation of life and cherishing of human emotions. In the simple and bright youthful vitality, he reveals the mood of sadness and loneliness. Later, his works went through a period of sensually bright colors and gradually entered a realm of quiet and lonely reality. Centering around the theory of "sketching from life" originated from Masaoka Shiki, in the hands of Mokichi, tanka creation eventually developed into a path of literary expression in which "self-life and nature are integrated".
This book selects more than 300 tankas from Mokichi's collection of representative works from different creative periods, such as "Red Light", "Uncut Jade", "Light" and "White Mountain", and uses Chinese translations supplemented by the original Japanese text and annotations to aid appreciation.
