Why read As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams?

Book cover of As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams: Recollections of a Woman in Eleventh-Century Japan

Book description

As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams is a unique autobiography in which the anonymous writer known as Lady Sarashina intersperses personal reflections, anecdotes and lyrical poems with accounts of her travels and evocative descriptions of the Japanese countryside. Born in AD 1008, Lady Sarashina felt an acute sense of…

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Why read it?

1 author picked As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Jules Pretty

Author

A beautiful and touching account of the author’s travels in early 11th century Japan. Lady Sarashina is deep in sorrow from the death of her husband and searches for solace in nature and place on pilgrimage routes and at temples along the way. This is a profound weaving of mind, journey, and place, as she travels across the 72 seasons of Japan’s year. Emotions link land and mind. She is acutely attentive to cuckoo calls and cherry blossom, the rain pattering on bamboo at night, the cool water in the stone well. “Even as I wander on my journey,”…

From Jules' list on The best books on stories and place since writing began.