Morning always comes

Shibata Toyo (1911-2013) was born in the city of Tojiki-shi, northeast of Tokyo, to a family of wealthy rice merchants. After a quick marriage and divorce at a young age, she remarried and ran a restaurant with her husband. The two had an only son.

Throughout her life, her return to the world of arts in general and to literature in particular, but writing poetry became an integral part of her life only after she crossed the age of 90. Her first book was published in 2010, when she was 98 years old, and sold more than one and a half million copies in Japan.

After her death, her second book was published and it was also very successful. Her poetry, translated here for the first time into Hebrew, presents the world of old age with its concerns and frustrations, but also with a deep sense of completion and appreciation. Her poems teach us, if only a little, about what goes on in the heart of an old man, who remembers the events of the past and cherishes the joy of the present.