Eiji Yoshikawa · 1935
Musashi
宮本武蔵
“The way is in training. Practice one thing a thousand times until it becomes second nature. Then practice it ten thousand more.”
Enter the WayIn the aftermath of the Battle of Sekigahara, a wounded young soldier lies bleeding in the mud. His name is Takezō — violent, arrogant, undisciplined. He does not yet know that he will become the greatest swordsman in Japanese history. Eiji Yoshikawa's Musashi is the epic story of that transformation: a novel of nearly a thousand pages that is at once a swashbuckling samurai adventure, a Zen meditation on mastery, and one of the most beloved works of twentieth-century Japanese literature.
“Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world.”
— Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings
Originally serialized in the Asahi Shimbun newspaper from 1935 to 1939, Yoshikawa's novel was an immediate phenomenon — millions of Japanese readers followed Musashi's journey daily. In 1981, Charles S. Terry's English translation brought this masterpiece to a worldwide audience. It has since inspired countless adaptations, including Takehiko Inoue's legendary manga Vagabond.