Castaways: Two Short Novels (First Edition)

Masuji Ibuse (author); Anthony Liman; David Aylward (translators)

ISBN 10: 0870118080 / ISBN 13: 9780870118081

Published by Kodansha USA Inc, Tokyo/New York, 1987

About this Item

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.

Seller Inventory # FLAHIVE-2656

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Castaways: Two Short Novels (First Edition)
• Publisher: Kodansha USA Inc, Tokyo/New York
• Publication Date: 1987
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0870118080
• ISBN 13: 9780870118081
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: As New
• Dust Jacket Condition: As New
• Seller catalogs:
  • Japanese Literature

About this title

Synopsis

Relates the stories of a geisha who recalls a youthful attachment to an important man, and a man who becomes instrumental in opening Japan to the outside world

About the Author

Masuji Ibuse was born in Kamo, Hiroshima Prefecture, in 1898. He majored in French at Waseda University and joined the School of Fine Arts to pursue a serious interest in painting. His first story, "Salamander," was published in 1923, when Ibuse was still a student, and by the early 1930s his eloquent use of dialect and his unique prose style had established him as one of the leading figures in the Japanese literary world. In the years since 1938 he has been awarded almost every literary prize in Japan, and on the publication of Black Rain (1966) Ibuse was presented with both the Cultural Medal and Japan's highest literary award, the Noma Prize.