Castaways: Two Short Novels (First Edition)

Tokyo and New York: Kodansha USA Inc, 1987. First edition, first printing. Hardcover. Fine in a fine dust jacket. Publisher's original price intact on jacket flap ($17.95). Comes with archival-quality mylar dust jacket protector. A tight clean copy. Octavo, 171 pages, with bibliography Translated from the Japanese by Liman and Aylward. This volume presents two novellas by Ibuse (1898–1993), the celebrated author of "Black Rain," winner of the Noma Prize. "Castaways" relates the true story of John Manjiro, an illiterate 19th-century Japanese fisherman shipwrecked and rescued by an American vessel, whose experiences in the West helped open Japan to the outside world. The story is based on strict historical fact, illuminated by Ibuse's poetic detail and gentle humor. The second novella tells of a geisha recalling her youthful attachment to a persecuted would-be modernizer in 19th-century Japan.