The Traveling Tree

The international bestseller from Japan

By: Michio Hoshino, Eli K. P. William - translator

Narrated by: Shogo Miyakita

'Everyone is on a journey in their lives . . . And I believe that humankind too is on a journey in the flow of a larger time.'


In this enduring classic, Michio Hoshino shares his reflections on the natural world, and our place within it.
Beautifully written, this book is a collection of Hoshino's writing published at the peak of his artistic prowess as a writer and photographer, only one year before his career was tragically cut short at the age of 43 by a fatal bear attack in the Kamchatka Peninsula.

First published in Japanese, The Traveling Tree is a literary triumph, available in English for the first time.


'Hoshino's prose sits somewhere between Henry David Thoreau's matter-of-fact observations in Walden and Annie Dillard's poetical musings in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.' Asian Review of Books©1995 Naoko Hoshino (P)2025 Octopus Publishing Group

Critic reviews

Translator Eli K.P. William renders Hoshino's playful but reverential prose into English for the first time... The Traveling Tree proves how boundless curiosity - whether for roaming wolves, Arctic glaciers or bush pilots - can breathe better, more honest, open-ended attention into the world we inhabit

Elegantly translated into English for the first time

Hoshino's prose sits somewhere between Henry David Thoreau's matter-of-fact observations in Walden and Annie Dillard's poetical musings in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.