What do you think?
Rate this book
The New Chushingura: The Forty-Seven Ronin
The epic samurai tale of loyalty, honor, and revenge…
In feudal Japan, Lord Asano, the daimyo of Ako, attempts to kill Lord Kira, the chief master of ceremonies in the shogun's Edo castle. The shogun sentences Lord Asano to seppuku, ritual suicide, to be carried out that same day. This injustice drives Asano’s loyal retainers to avenge his death. They vow to deliver the head of Lord Kira to the grave of their late lord.
Eiji Yoshikawa weaves this exciting historical tale of justice and betrayal, taking the readers through the conflicts and motivations of the players whose long-ago actions affect Japan today.
An early retelling of this incident was a puppet play titled Chushingura, which is translated as The Treasury of Loyal Retainers. Eiji Yoshikawa's The New Chushingura was serially published in Hinode magazine from January 1935 to January 1937.
In feudal Japan, Lord Asano, the daimyo of Ako, attempts to kill Lord Kira, the chief master of ceremonies in the shogun's Edo castle. The shogun sentences Lord Asano to seppuku, ritual suicide, to be carried out that same day. This injustice drives Asano’s loyal retainers to avenge his death. They vow to deliver the head of Lord Kira to the grave of their late lord.
Eiji Yoshikawa weaves this exciting historical tale of justice and betrayal, taking the readers through the conflicts and motivations of the players whose long-ago actions affect Japan today.
An early retelling of this incident was a puppet play titled Chushingura, which is translated as The Treasury of Loyal Retainers. Eiji Yoshikawa's The New Chushingura was serially published in Hinode magazine from January 1935 to January 1937.
- GenresJapanHistorical Fiction
744 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 22, 2021
44 people are currently reading
65 people want to read
About the author
Eiji Yoshikawa
536 books778 followersPen-name of Yoshikawa Hidetsugu. 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.
In 1960, he received the Order of Cultural Merit.
Eiji Yoshikawa (吉川 英治, August 11, 1892 – September 7, 1962) was a Japanese historical novelist. Among his best-known novels, most are revisions of older classics. 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. 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. 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. 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. He is cited as one of the best historical novelists in Japan.
In 1960, he received the Order of Cultural Merit.
Eiji Yoshikawa (吉川 英治, August 11, 1892 – September 7, 1962) was a Japanese historical novelist. Among his best-known novels, most are revisions of older classics. 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. 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. 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. 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. He is cited as one of the best historical novelists in Japan.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 16, 2024
I remember watching Chūshingura: Hana no Maki, Yuki no Maki by Hiroshi Inagaki and roughly around the same time reading Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa probably close to 25 years ago now. I ate both of them up. So when I saw that there was an English translation of more books by Yoshikawa and especially this story I bought it. While the story is good and there are definitely some great parts to it one would expect from Yoshikawa having read Musashi and Taiko in translation, the one downside to this is the quality of translation for this book.
Being a translation professional myself, one of the only things I can think of is that there was no editing or proofreading step completed by an additional person. There are sentences and some passages that even after re-reading was hard or impossible to understand due to the translation. Though, not having access to the source text, I am fairly certain there are also a few spokes where there are errors. For example, there is portion of dialogue between the characters Horibe Yasubei and Takata Gunpei. Takata is addressed, but the following bit of dialogue it is written that Horibe responds. But if you follow the dialogue it becomes clear that the name was just incorrectly mixed up.
I previously mentioned reading Musashi and Taiko by Yoshikawa, where both Charles Terry and William Wilson did great jobs of translating the books, but I would also recommend the Ryoma! series written by Ryotaro Shiba and translated and edited by Paul McCarthy, Juliet Winters Carpenter, and Phyllis Birnbaum.
Due to the quality and readability of the translation, I would give this an overall 3 stars. Great story, just that the translation can use some much needed polishing for it to really shine.
Being a translation professional myself, one of the only things I can think of is that there was no editing or proofreading step completed by an additional person. There are sentences and some passages that even after re-reading was hard or impossible to understand due to the translation. Though, not having access to the source text, I am fairly certain there are also a few spokes where there are errors. For example, there is portion of dialogue between the characters Horibe Yasubei and Takata Gunpei. Takata is addressed, but the following bit of dialogue it is written that Horibe responds. But if you follow the dialogue it becomes clear that the name was just incorrectly mixed up.
I previously mentioned reading Musashi and Taiko by Yoshikawa, where both Charles Terry and William Wilson did great jobs of translating the books, but I would also recommend the Ryoma! series written by Ryotaro Shiba and translated and edited by Paul McCarthy, Juliet Winters Carpenter, and Phyllis Birnbaum.
Due to the quality and readability of the translation, I would give this an overall 3 stars. Great story, just that the translation can use some much needed polishing for it to really shine.
December 8, 2023
At times it feels like this was translated by AI. Some passages just don’t make sense.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews