Haiku, the short Japanese poem now proliferating overseas, scarcely needs an introduction anymore. Its three great pillars, widely read even in translation, are the poets Matsuo Basho (1641-1694), its first creator, then Yosa Buson (1716-1784) and Kobayashi Issa (1763-1828), who renewed it.
By the mid-19th century, it was a dying form, and it might have vanished if not for the efforts of one man, Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902), the subject of this new biography by Donald Keene.
Born in the provincial capital of Matsuyama, on the cusp of the new Meiji Era, Shiki died a full decade before its close, yet his work exerted great influence throughout the century that followed.
