Byobu
Vitale, Ida More by this author...£9.99Translated by Sean Manning
Byobu is an intimate work filled with poetry and knowledge, densely interwoven without pretension, born of a single force: curiosity. As a book, it’s representative of the modesty and complexity of Vitale’s poetic universe. Byobu (from the Japanese word byōbu meaning literally a ‘wind wall’, i.e. a folding screen) is the protagonist in this treatise on the senses comprised of thirty-three contemplative episodes and a final section of aphoristic thoughts. Bybou is less a physical character, than a spiritual one, a consciousness revealing its rich inner world, which is, in fact, driven by its meticulous attention to our rich outer world. The insights afforded the readers certainly lead them to see Byobu as a folding screen behind which resides his universe of behaviours, worries, curiosities, pleasures, peculiarities, and efforts to understand.