The Traveling Tree: The international bestseller from Japan

Michio Hoshino

Nov 2025 · Gaia · Narrated by Shogo Miyakita

About this audiobook

Over half a million copies sold in Japan

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

About the author

Michio Hoshino was a Japanese-born nature photographer. After his introduction to Alaska, Hoshino was smitten with America's northernmost state and dedicated the remainder of his life to photographing and writing about it. The Travelling Tree is a collection of his writing and will be supplemented in translation with a selection of his finest images. It was published at the peak of his artistic prowess, only two years before his career was tragically cut short at the age of 43 by a fatal bear attack while on a shoot in the Kamchatka Peninsula.