"What is the Colour of Purple?"

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Hanada Seizō lives by the rules. As a junior scribe for the Tokugawa Shogunate, his duty is simple: keep the records clean, stay out of trouble, and ignore the quiet terror of a changing regime. But when he is sent to Kyoto to document the trial of Takuan Sōhō, the abbot of Daitoku-ji, Hanada’s orderly world begins to disintegrate. Takuan has committed the ultimate offense: he has accepted a purple robe from the Emperor, directly defying the Shogun's decree. What follows is a battle of wills between the absolute power of the Shogunate and a monk who offers no resistance at all. As they travel the winter highways from Kyoto to the trial chambers of Edo and the snow-heavy mountains of the north, Hanada finds himself complicit in the abbot's quiet subversion—carrying an illegal imperial artifact in his own satchel. Written in a dry, incisive first-person voice, *What is the Colour of Purple?* is a historical novella that explores the boundaries of authority, the weight of the written word, and the color no government could ever successfully regulate. This novella is a dry, dialogue-driven historical comedy set in the early years of the Tokugawa Shogunate. Perfect for readers of Nghi Vo's *The Empress of Salt and Fortune* and fans of classical Zen literature, it offers a grounded, atmospheric look at the Purple Robe Incident with "inward stakes" and a focus on intellectual tension over physical conflict.