Under the shade of a cherry blossom tree

Saikaku's artistic style is remarkable for its ambiguity. Before the reader's eyes, constant metamorphoses and wonders take place: the author tirelessly changes masks, transforming from a moralist and chronicler into a cunning, endlessly inventive and humorous storyteller. "Laughter," Saikaku wrote, "comes in two forms: empty and that which comes from the depths of the heart. A person is like a vessel that contains either lies or truth." Irony, sarcasm, and parodic grotesque are the author's favorite techniques, but in his laughter, one can hear the sadness about the transience of life and human destiny. Saikaku's creative range is extraordinarily wide. In this book, the reader will find works of different genres - love stories, everyday life, magical-fantastic, judicial, and others. Some of the stories are being published in Russian for the first time.