A Boy of the Hill District and Other Stories

A boy from a mansion on the Tokyo heights slips out through the black gate to play with the town children below, and falls under the spell of the fishmonger's daughter, Otsuru. A young bank clerk and his bride make their first home in a temple cottage beneath a persimmon tree. On a summer beach at Kamakura, a poor student gathers his courage to speak his heart the night before the Great Kantō Earthquake. After the same earthquake topples a moneylender's high brick wall, his reclusive son ventures out to join the neighborhood night watch.

Minakami Takitarō, novelist, essayist and lifelong insurance man of the Mita bungaku circle, wrote with tenderness and irony about childhood, class and the walls people build. This collection runs from his celebrated debut of 1911 to a story of 1930, and includes two autobiographical sketches: a childhood hero who could throw a stone across a river, and a youthful night climb of the volcano Asama.

Translated complete and unabridged from the Japanese, with a translator's note, endnotes on places, customs and period terms, and source information.