After I finished reading Shiba’s novel Ryoma ga Yuku, about the life and times of Sakamoto Ryoma, I spent about six months studying the most important nonfiction books I could find about my subject (to be discussed in a later blog). I started writing the book in January 1987, just after returning from a trip to Kyoto, where I had explored all of the must-see Ryoma-related sites and more – including the temple bells resounding through the frigid hills of Higashiyama on New Year’s Eve, a wonder I shall never forget! I would continue my Ryoma-related travels, including around Kochi, Nagasaki, Yamaguchi, Kagoshima, and Hiroshima prefectures, for the next several years.

I set myself a target of writing five pages per day (on a Wang word processor – anyone remember that?) in my “new” tiny apartment in Shimokitazawa (which would become one of my favorite districts in Tokyo). I usually spent between five and seven hours a day, five days a week, writing – while working for a Japanese weekly magazine. I kept up this regimen (more or less) for almost five years, until finishing the last page of the final first draft (much of which I had already rewritten or revised multiple times) in September 1991. The final draft was more than twice as long as the published book.

I’ve mentioned that Japan’s National Diet Library’s online database is a treasure trove of primary sources of Bakumatsu-Meiji Restoration history. These include 加太邦憲自歴譜 (Kabuto Kuninori Jirekifu), the autobiography of Kuwana samurai Kabuto Kuninori, published posthumously in 1928, three years after his death.

Kabuto was in Kyoto on and off during the last three or four years of the Bakufu. The daimyo of Kuwana, Matsudaira Sadaaki, inspector of the Imperial Court and nobles, (Kyoto Shoshidai), was the younger brother of the daimyo of Aizu, Matsudaira Katamori, protector of Kyoto (Kyoto Shugoshoku), who oversaw the Shinsengumi. Kabuto’s book is yet another valuable primary source in my research on the Shinsengumi.

This year is the 20th anniversary of the publication of my book Ryoma: Life of a Renaissance Samurai. So how did I get the idea of writing it? Years ago while I was reading Yoshikawa Eiji’s biographical novel “Musashi,” a friend of mine saw it. “Musashi’s interesting,” he said. “But this is even better.” He handed me the first paperback volume of an 8-volume biographical novel entitled Ryoma ga Yuku, Shiba Ryotaro’s masterpiece about Sakamoto Ryoma. I took the book, thanked my friend, went home, put it in the bookshelf and there it sat for a couple of years. When I finally picked it up again and started reading it, I couldn’t put it down. Not only had I discovered my (new ) “favorite writer,” but I became acquainted with a samurai of the mid-19^th century who changed my life.

At first I thought about translating it into English so that people all over the world could learn about Ryoma and his fascinating story. But translation is a tedious job and I’d done my share of it by then. And besides, since Shiba’s book was written for a Japanese audience, I knew that a straight English translation would never work. When a Japanese writer writes for a Japanese audience he doesn’t have to explain certain cultural, historical and linguistic nuances that are common knowledge or otherwise readily understood. But if Shiba’s book were to be translated into English, the translator would either have to use lots of annotation or take poetic license with the text, neither of which appealed to me. And so I decided to write my own book, and began the six-year process of researching and writing Ryoma, the only biographical novel about the great man in English.