Literary Landscapes - Literary Landscapes: Tokyo: A book-lover’s tour across temples, teahouses, and tales untold (Literary Landscapes)

By Matt Treyvaud

A literary guide to Tokyo through its writers, bookshops, cafés and the places where Japan’s greatest stories were imagined.

Tokyo is a city of contrasts – where centuries-old haiku echo in temple gardens and manga billboards light up Shibuya Crossing. Through striking photography and practical guidebook entries, explore the places that have inspired, housed and shaped generations of Japanese readers and writers.

From historic neighbourhoods to the latest manga hotspots, discover:

  • BOOK-LOVER’S PARADISE: Jimbocho’s maze of second-hand bookshops, packed with hidden treasures.
  • WRITER’S HAUNTS: Museums dedicated to Japan’s greatest writers, from Matsuo Bashō to Natsume Sōseki.
  • AFTER DARK: The cafés and bars where poets and writers once put pen to paper late into the night.
  • BLOSSOMING: Tokyo’s brilliant contemporary bookshops keeping its reading culture alive.
  • MANGA-OBSESSED: Legendary manga cafés and specialist spots where Japan’s reading culture takes on a life of its own.

Packed with striking photography and useful insights into the places where stories were written, read and imagined, this is an essential companion for book lovers exploring Tokyo – or dreaming of their next trip.

Format: ebook
Release Date: 22 Oct 2026
ISBN: 978-0-00-873854-9

Graduating from Melbourne University with majors in Linguistics and English, Matt worked as a copywriter in Australia before moving to Japan in 2002. Building on more than a decade of experience in the translation and localization industry, he founded Kōchikudō G.K., a translation, editing, and writing firm, in 2017. He is also ashihan(master) in the Kinko school of shakuhachi (bamboo flute).

In 2020 he received the 2019–2020 Lindsley and Masao Miyoshi Translation Prize from the Donald Keene Center at Columbia University for his translation of Shimura Fukumi’s The Music of Color (Iro o kanaderu).

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