Taiko (novel)

Taiko (Japanese: 新書太閤記, Hepburn: Shinsho Taikōki), also known as Taiko: An Epic Novel of War and Glory in Feudal Japan, is a Japanese epic novel written by Eiji Yoshikawa about the life and rise to power of Toyotomi Hideyoshi during the Sengoku and Azuchi-Momoyama periods of Feudal Japan.

The book is a semi-biographical work depicted through the style of an epic fiction novel, and follows Hideyoshi from his childhood to his death. Taiko consists of eleven newspaper serials originally published in the Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun throughout the late 1930s. In 1967, the volumes were compiled by Yoshikawa's wife, Fumiko (née Ikedo) and published under the name Shinsho Taikōki.

In 1992, Shinsho Taikōki was translated and abridged into English with consent from the author's estate by William Scott Wilson. It was released in the United States, the United Kingdom and continental Europe as Taiko: An Epic Novel of War and Glory in Feudal Japan by Kodansha International. The localized name, Taiko, is a reference to the Japanese word Taikō (太閤), the title of a retired Kampaku (関白, Imperial Regent) which is commonly used as an endonym for Hideyoshi.