Misuzu Shobo

Misuzu Shobo was founded in the winter of 1945, after the World War Two ended. The name of our company comes from an expression “Misuzu Karu.” Literally meaning “mowing bamboo grasses,” the words were first uttered by ancient poets who were impressed by gregarious bamboo grasses in a wilderness of the region Shinano, then have become a set epithet of Shinano (today’s Nagano prefecture.) Their verses, included in the oldest anthology of poems in Japan, Man'yo-shu, evoke us the fresh voices of inspiration of more than a thousand years ago. Founders of our company thought the figures of these poets in the wasteland suitable as the symbol of their new publishing business that is to metamorphose “things” into “words.”