Sleeping Sinning Falling is a generous volume of selected and new poems, written over the last twenty-five years by one of the major voices in twentieth century Japanese poetry. The translations are by Hiroaki Sato, who has published over twelve books in English translation. One of them, From the Country of Eight Islands, an anthology of Japanese poetry which he translated and edited with Burton Watson, won the American P.E.N. translation prize for 1982. "Mellifluous voice alone does not, of course, make a poet compelling. I soon found that Takahashi has, among other things, a high sense of drama - the sense that a poem is not something intended for the poet's satisfaction of his inner self alone but for other's partaking as well." -Hiroaki Sato, translator Mutsuo Takahashi, born in 1937, is a Japanese poet, essayist, and writer. He is most well-known for writing about male homoeroticism. His work has won him several literary awards such as Rekitei Prize, Yomiuri Literary Prize, Takami Jun Prize, Modern Poetry Hanatsubaki Prize, and the Kunsho award. Hiroaki Sato, born in 1942, is a Japanese poet and translator who frequently wrote for The Japan Times.