The Book of Tea
Author Tenshin Okakura(Author）
Book Features & Author Introduction
A Bilingual Edition of Okakura Tenshin’s The Book of Tea
Okakura Tenshin (born Okakura Kakuzō) was raised in the international port city of Yokohama during the late Edo period. Thanks to his merchant father’s influence, he grew up fluent in English and developed a global perspective early on. As a student at Tokyo Kaisei School (later the University of Tokyo), he studied under Ernest Fenollosa and traveled throughout Japan as his assistant and interpreter, researching classical Japanese art.
Amid the rapid modernization of the Meiji era, Tenshin worked passionately to preserve Buddhist art, which was in decline. He founded the Tokyo Fine Arts School (now Tokyo University of the Arts) and the Japan Art Institute, becoming a central figure in the modern Japanese art movement.
Over a century ago, Tenshin wrote The Book of Tea in eloquent English—an insightful and even humorous exploration of the philosophy of the Japanese tea ceremony. Alongside Nitobe Inazō’s Bushido, it offered Western intellectuals a rare and profound gateway into the values and aesthetics of Japan and the East. The first edition was published in New York in 1906.
“The Book of Tea is as delicate as the wing of a transparent insect. Yet when that wing begins to tremble, the resonance carries the very soul of Japan across great distances.”
—From the foreword “The Resonance of the Art of Life” by Seigow Matsuoka
Print Book Price1,320 Yen
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Book Data
| Title | The Book of Tea |
|---|---|
| Author | Tenshin Okakura(Author） |
| ISBN | 9784896846850 |
| Print Book Price | 1320 Yen |
| First Published | March 2008 |
| Number of Pages | 180 pages |
| Book Size | 188mm x 113mm |
| Genre | JAPANESE-ENGLISH BILINGUAL BOOKS |
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