"Mr. Rikyu has witnessed the death of many samurai... How many of them have tasted the tea prepared by Mr. Rikyu before going to meet their death on the battlefield? When you have witnessed the death of so many warriors, you cannot afford to die in your bed!"
No, Mr. Rikyu (1522-1591), a great tea master from Zen Buddhism, did not die in his bed! He committed hara-kiri at the age of 69. Why did he kill himself? An old monk, his disciple, tries to elucidate the mystery of this suicide.
This investigative book takes us to Japan in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At that time, the tea ceremony was a serious act, a ritual that demonstrated a formidable commitment, imbued with ethical and political demands, and sometimes a pretext for secret negotiations.
The Tea Master is therefore quite naturally a novel of initiation, of meditation, lyrical and sensual at the same time. Through the historical figure of Rikyu, Yasushi Inoue (1907-1991) paints the portrait of a generation haunted by death. Strange to think that he wrote his last story and undoubtedly his masterpiece, published in 1991, the very year of his death!