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About us contact details Catalogue
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“Shohei
Ooka’s novel about a bar hostess in postwar Tokyo is a bracing
alternative to the more familiar geisha stories that have appealed to
romantic American readers. . . . In Dennis Washburn’s
smooth translation, the novel displays the subtleties of a sector of
Japanese culture ruled by sexual courtesies.” “In
its first English translation, Ooka’s
1961 novel depicts the atmosphere and social mores of Tokyo’s decadent
Ginza District of the 1950s. . . . Despite the dry irony of Ooka’s prose, there is great pathos in this story of the
little bar hostess whose circumstances overwhelm her. This edition
includes an informative introduction by the translator and an enlightening
1972 postscript by the author.” Ooka
Shohei (1909–88) was a distinguished member of the Japanese literary
establishment for more than four decades following the end of the Pacific
War. He was a prolific writer and active translator of French literature,
most notably the novels of Stendahl. A protege of the influential critic
Kobayashi Hideo (1902–83), Ooka secured his reputation with such works
as the novel Fires on the Plain and the memoir Taken Captive: A Japanese
POW’s Story that recount his experiences as a soldier in the Philippines
during World War II. The
Shade of Blossoms, for which he was honored in 1961 with both the
Mainichi and the Shincho literary prizes, marks an especially important
stage in his development as an artist. In his postscript O–oka describes
this story as a novel of manners, and certainly the setting of the novel,
the demimonde of the Ginza bar scene in the 1950s, and its subject, the
aging bar hostess Yoko, provide a disturbing view of lives at the margins
of Japanese society. Ooka’s is a powerfully ethical literature that
describes the inner search for meaning and identity in a world where
received values have been disrupted by war or by social upheavals. His
moral imagination is uncompromising and disturbing, and his emotional
intelligence is matched by few postwar writers. A number of his
contemporaries, including the novelists Mishima Yukio and O–e Kenzaburo,
have expressed considerable admiration for Ooka, ranking him among the
finest artists of modern Japanese literature. Published by Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan |
