Oku no Hosomichi

Librivox recording of Oku no Hosomichi , by Matsuo Bashō. Read in Japanese by kaseumin. Oku no Hosomichi (meaning Narrow Road to Oku [the Deep North]) is a major work by Matsuo Bashō. Oku no Hosomichi was written based on a journey taken by Basho in the late spring of 1689. He and his traveling companion Sora departed from Edo (modern-day Tokyo) for the northerly interior region known as Oku, propelled mostly by a desire to see the places about which the old poets wrote. Travel in those days was, of course, very dangerous to one's health, but Bashō was committed to a kind of poetic ideal of wa