Battles of Coxinga

by Chikamatsu Monzaemon, Donald Keene

Coxinga was half Chinese and half Japanese, a 17th century adventurer and pirate, whose exploits shook the Far East in the seventeenth century.

Genres: Nonfiction

215 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1951

About the author

Born in Japan in 1653 with the name of "Sugimore Nobumori", Chikamatsu Monzaemon was to become perhaps the greatest dramatist in the history of the Japanese theatre.
Chikamatsu is said to have written over one hundred plays, most of which were written for the bunraku or puppet theatre. His works combine comedy and tragedy, poetry and prose, and present scenes of combat, torture, and suicide on stage. Most of Chikamatsu's domestic tragedies are based an actual events. His Sonezaki shinju (The Love Suicides at Sonezaki), for example, was based on reports of an actual double suicide of the apprentice clerk and his lover.
But he wrote some famous historical plays, too.

In 1705, Chikamatsu moved to Osaka where he became a writer for Takemoto Gidayu's puppet theatre and remained here until his death in 1725.