The Tsutsumi Chunagon Monogatari

This is the collection of the world's oldest short stories in the form of literature, mostly written in the late Heian Period (794-1192AD) of Japan. The Heian Period to which the Tsutsumi Chunagon Monogatari belongs is the golden age of literature in Japan when many great works both in prose and verse appear such as Genji Monogatari by Murasaki Shikibu. All the stories in the collection have wonderful grace and flow in the style like other Heian literature. The stories all possess an originality and often end humorously and ironically. Readers may feel after reading them that the world of aristocrats of 11th century Japan is in a sense the ideal life of human beings of sensibility, filled with joy and sorrow, with elegance and grace without rudeness or neglect of others. Readers will also feel how modern the stories are and how they already resemble the modern short stories of Europe and America with which we are all familiar.