The Tales of the Heike is one of the most influential works in
Japanese literature and culture, remaining even today a crucial source
for fiction, drama, and popular media. Originally written in the
mid-thirteenth century, it features a cast of vivid characters and
chronicles the epic Genpei war, a civil conflict that marked the end of
the power of the Heike and changed the course of Japanese history. The
Tales of the Heike focuses on the lives of both the samurai warriors
who fought for two powerful twelfth-century Japanese clans-the Heike
(Taira) and the Genji (Minamoto)-and the women with whom they were
intimately connected.
The Tales of the Heike provides a dramatic window onto the emerging
world of the medieval samurai and recounts in absorbing detail the chaos
of the battlefield, the intrigue of the imperial court, and the gradual
loss of a courtly tradition. The book is also highly religious and
Buddhist in its orientation, taking up such issues as impermanence,
karmic retribution, attachment, and renunciation, which dominated the
Japanese imagination in the medieval period.
In this new, abridged translation, Burton Watson offers a gripping
rendering of the work's most memorable episodes. Particular to this
translation are the introduction by Haruo Shirane, the woodblock
illustrations, a glossary of characters, and an extended bibliography.