Nakajima Says and Other Stories by Chōkōdō Shujin

Description

10 tales of love, war and haunting, suspended between the final decades of Imperial Japan and a ghostly modernity, including the play Blossoms of Iwo Jima, a dialogue between three soldiers facing death at the end of WWII.

This debut short story collection guides us through the blood-soaked cabbage farms of rural Japan to the narrow, slate-grey streets of Tokyo, where death masks are painted all too often. From the hauntings of the Sanriku tidal wave to the meditative wisdom of Nakajima, Chōkōdō Shujin (澄江堂主人) crafts a startlingly eerie picture of a nation on the brink of transformation.

The original Chōkōdō Shujin, whose name graced the pages of Taishō-era Japan, was the pen name of Ryūnosuke Akutagawa. Often hailed as the father of the Japanese short story, Akutagawa dazzled the literary world with his sharp prose, psychological insight and tragic brevity. In the essence of his literary career, which married Ancient Japan with modern existential dread, Akutagawa committed suicide in 1927 by overdose of barbital, a commercial sleeping aid.

The Chōkōdō Shujin of this work is a living writer, translator and admirer of Akutagawa. Residing between Aomori, Japan and the States, Shujin also writes with this name, which means something like ‘demon of letters’ or ‘captive to words’.

This first edition debuts in English.