Ryotaro Shiba, in memorium.

This year marks the tenth anniversary of the passing of Ryotaro Shiba (1923-1996), novelist, essayist, travel writer. Yet 250 paperback editions of his 350 books still line store shelves. In January NHK began a yearlong broadcast of an adaptation of Shiba's novel Komyo ga Tsuji. And recently the Asahi Shimbun held a symposium on Shiba.

His sales figures astonish. The novel Ryoma ga Yuku, about Ryoma Sakamoto, the Meiji Restoration hero, has sold 21.5 million copies; Saka no Ue no Kumo, the story of the destruction of the Baltic fleet during the Russo-Japanese War, 14.45…