Tōson Shimazaki: 夜明け前 (Before the Dawn)
The latest addition to my website is Tōson Shimazaki‘s 夜明け前 (Before the Dawn). This a massive (750+ page) novel about the events before and after the Meiji Restoration of 1868, when the shogunate, which had essentially ruled Japan for 250 years, returned power to the Emperor, with the result that Japan moved from being a … Read more