This book was a fun, swashbuckling adventure with swordfights and samurai and sake and courtesans and everything Japanese that you could imagine. Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa is a historical fiction novel about the early life of Musashi Miyamoto, Japan’s most famous swordsman who wrote The Book of Five Rings. (This review covers the entirety of the Musashi series, as it's actually one thousand page book.) It is up to you to decide whether this is to be a chamber of darkness or one of light.' (p. This room can be the wellspring of enlightenment, the same fountain of knowledge found and enriched by sages in the past. If you look at it only with your eyes, you will see nothing more than an unlit, closed cell. ' Think of this room as your mother's womb and prepare to be born anew. When i come away, I find that heart sees more than before'. A famous priest of ancient times once said, 'I become immersed in the sacred scriptures and read thousands of volumes. He is cited as one of the best historical novelists in Japan. He was awarded the Cultural Order of Merit in 1960 (the highest award for a man of letters in Japan), the Order of the Sacred Treasure and the Mainichi Art Award just before his death from cancer in 1962. His other books also serve similar purposes and, although most of his novels are not original works, he created a huge amount of work and a renewed interest in the past. As an example, the original manuscript of Taiko is 15 volumes Yoshikawa took up to retell it in a more accessible tone, and reduced it to only two volumes. He was mainly influenced by classics such as The Tale of the Heike, Tale of Genji, Outlaws of the Marsh, and Romance of the Three Kingdoms, many of which he retold in his own style. Among his best-known novels, most are revisions of older classics. In 1960, he received the Order of Cultural Merit.Įiji Yoshikawa ( 吉川英治, Aug– September 7, 1962) was a Japanese historical novelist.

Yoshikawa is well-known for his work as a Japanese historical fiction novelist, and a number of re-makes have been spawned off his work.

Musashi 1 eiji yoshikawa