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Wednesday, January 22, 2020

My Opening Post for The Japanese Literature Challenge 13- A Short Story by Natsuko Kuroda - Two Anthologies Suggested




Japanese Literature Challenge 13

I first participated in Dolce Bellezza's wonderful Japanese Literature Challenge in July 2009.  I have now joined in eleven times.  Through this event I have learned of many great writers.

The Challenge Home Page has all the information you need and lots of reading suggestions.  Through participation you may  discover others with similar interests.

My purpose today is to let everyone know of a very poignant story by Natsuko Kuroda (translated from the Japanese by Asa Yoneda) that can be read online.  There are not a lot of Japanese stories in translation online and very few from a writer of Kuroda's stature.

I will also suggest two very worth having anthologies of Japanese short stories at the close of the post.

"Waymarkers" by Natsuko Koroda, translated from the Japanese by Asa Yoneda, from Words Without Borders, November, 2015 

Traditionally three days out of the year the dead return to visit their families.  Waymarkers in the form of hanging lights are set out to guide the way of those returning.  Kurada elegantly describes the lights.  As time passes, the lights begin to fall into disrepair.  Everyone knows eventually there will be no markers to guide those returning.   The close of the story shows the preoccupation with decay, with the markers becoming most valued by insects.


"Those things which seemed always to be recalled in their mid-day paleness, rather than their crucial lighted state, might only have been lit for a short time, as a matter of form, from the inconvenience of them serving in fact as waymarkers for insects, or might have shone but briefly because of the infancy being spent in that house, during which sleep came soon after the late sundowns of the season. They were beacons through those days of summer, neither seen nor swaying, dim and uncertain even in their midst. Summer, which once the summers of excess waymarkers gave way to summers from which waymarkers had vanished ought to have manifested in that absence a more enduring remembrance of the death than in the time shortly after it, blurs and shadows even that itself into the haze of no longer being possible to see and ascertain completely".

From Words Without Borders


Natsuko Kuroda was born in Tokyo in 1937, and graduated from the Japanese department at Waseda University’s School of Education. After working as a teacher, an administrator, and a copy editor, she made her literary debut with a b sango, which won the 2012 new writers’ competition held by Waseda Bungaku, Japan’s oldest literary magazine. Written horizontally across the page, avoiding the use of proper nouns and pronouns, and relying heavily on the hiragana syllabary instead of the more conventional, logographic kanji (Chinese characters), a b sango rejects prevailing conventions of fiction in its attempt to inhabit a new form. The work went on to win the Akutagawa Prize, Japan’s most prestigious literary prize, awarded to innovative new writing

There are two anthologies of Japanese short stories I think will provide you with a very good start in the field.

The Oxford Book of Japanese Short Stories, 1997



The Penquin Book of Japanese Short Stories, 2018, available as a Kindle.


If pressed, I would say The Penquin CollectIon would be the best start for most.


Mel u




6 comments:

  1. Mel, what a wonderful, informative post! First, I am so glad that you are joining in again. You have been a faithful friend and support over the years. Secondly, you are the second person to recommend both anthologies to us. (Tony of Tony’s Reading List loves the Oxford Collection, and Joanne of ten million hardbacks has recommended the Oxford collection). Short stories are such a wonderful way to immerse ourselves in, or even begin with, Japanese literature. I look forward to reading the author you highlighted here, who is only one year younger than my mother. Surely, there is a lot of wisdom there!

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  2. Mel, I look forward to your posts for this special reading challenge! Although I am not posting often these days, I have a book in set aside already for this wonderful reading challenge. I will add Bellezza's lovely reading button to my blog's sidebar. :)

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  3. Mel, thanks for reviewing Natsuko Kuroda's short story as well as writing about her and the anthologies. I just don't read enough of non-English writing and I know I'm the poorer for it.

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  4. Mel,

    I just finished reading Rashomon and Other Stories (six only in this small collection) by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa. That's my entry for JLC13. I'm sure these six stories are included in your large volumes here. Wonder what you think of them. –– Arti of Ripple Effects

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  5. Hi Mel: I'm new to your blog, as well as to Japanese literature, which I haven't read much (thanks to JLC13, this is changing a bit!). Thanks for the recommendations regarding the anthologies (I'll be sure and look them up) as well your review of the Kuroda's short story, which I found most intriguing!

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  6. Arti. I just posted a few comments on your insightful blog post. Thanks for your visit

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your comments help keep us going and do a lot to make the blog more interesting.thanks