The Hunting Gun by Yasushi Inoue (1950, translated 2001, 73 pages)

1907 to 1991

The post WWII Japanese novel is one of my core reading interests.  Sometimes I go away from it for a while but I am always happy when I return.    The post WWII Japanese novel is a fantastic reading area.   The Hunting Gun is a small gem of a novel that tells the story of an affair from three different points of view.  We first see the affair when a woman reads the diary of her recently deceased mother.   Then we see the story from the perspective of the wife of the man who had the affair, and last we see it through the eyes of the woman who had the affair.  The psychological insights are really acute.  There is great sadness in this wonderful work.  I am surprised it is not better known.   There is some amazing imagery in the novel.

Tuttle Books, the leading publisher of Japanese literature in translation is in the process of bring their full catalogue out as Kindle editions so e-reader of Japanese literature have a lot to look forward to.

Mel u