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  • Tree: My Encounters with Trees by Aya Koda book cover
  • Tree: My Encounters with Trees by Aya Koda book cover
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Tree: My Encounters with Trees

by Aya Koda

A personal journey through Japan’s trees

$16.45 USD
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AlbakiReads Editorial

A personal journey through Japan’s trees

Aya Kōda’s collection of essays brings together childhood memory and journeys through Japan, using encounters with trees to consider both natural change and human responsibility. A sapling given to Kōda by her father becomes an early point of connection; later travels bring the writer into contact with forests and landscapes affected by landslides and logging. The book presents trees as part of the conditions that sustain life, while asking what people owe to the natural world and what they leave for the future. Its focus ranges from particular Japanese trees to broader questions of time, care and environmental loss.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Readers interested in essays about nature and the environment.
  • Readers curious about Japanese trees, landscapes and place.
  • Readers who enjoy reflective writing grounded in personal experience and travel.

Themes

Trees and human interdependenceEnvironmental care and responsibilityTime, memory and inheritanceJapan’s forests and landscapes

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

**A London Review Bookshop Bestseller**

'Translated into English for the first time after a hugely successful 2022 reissue in Japan, this classic text, which features prominently in Wim Wenders' film Perfect Days, takes us on a "beautiful, pensive" journey through trees in Japan.'--Caroline Sanderson, The Bookseller


A Japanese classic, Tree invites us to foster peace in our lives by connecting with trees.

Cherry blossom, hinoki, ezo spruce. Persimmon, maple, cypress. The trees of Japan are wondrous emblems of beauty that cast a spell on those who venture to its unique landscape.

As a child, Aya Kōda realized they were more than mere objects of beauty. Gifted a sapling by her father, she discovered that we depend on trees as much as they do on us. Markers of time passing, they clear the air and regenerate our earth - while we are responsible to care for their future.

Following her travels around Japan, as she witnesses landslides, lumber and forests of falling ash, Tree is a beautiful series of essays that contemplate the most distinctive and eternal features of our natural world. A modern classic translated for the first time, Kōda's voice echoes down the generations, to remind us that trees hold a mirror to what we cherish on earth, and what we choose to leave behind.

Featured in Wim Winders' Oscar-nominated film Perfect Days and now in English for the first time, translated from Japanese by Charlotte Goff.

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