DON´T LOSE HEART

TOYO SHIBATA

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JAN 2013

Don't Lose Heart is the translation of Kujikenaide, a collection of 42 poems authored by a 100-year-old Japanese woman named Toyo Shibata. Don't Lose Heart includes each original Japanese poem and a side-by-side English translation. Written in what reviewers have termed a down-to-earth style with "sprightly" words, her poems have proven encouraging to thousands of readers. Her poems have also inspired the victims of the Great Japan Disaster of 2011, for whom she has become a symbol of encouragement and faith to that tragic event. In a poem dedicated to the victims she writes, "I beg of you, please do not allow your soul to also be swept away." Many of her poems have that tone of encouragement, with regards to love, dreams, future and self-confidence. S&Y Associates, the publisher of this translation, has been deeply moved by the courage displayed by the victims of the Great Disaster, and so, seeing the inspiration given to the victims by Kujikenaide, S&Y Associates will donate the profits of Don't Lose Heart to the Japan Relief Fund, in hopes of providing a better life to the children of Fukushima, as well as to all the victims. ABC News describes the poems of Toyo Shibata as "uplifting and quite phenomenal in selling over 1 million copies". Sales have exceeded over 1.7 million copies in Japan to date. Reuters writes "A 99-year-old woman writing about love, dreams and hanging on to hope has touched the hearts of Japanese worn out by years of a lagging economy, propelling her self-published poetry book onto bestseller lists." Don't Lose Heart has received rave reviews from other mainline media, such as John Lundberg of Huffington Post, and The Guardian, to name a few. Countless websites have also featured her story.

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