A Single Flower

Asako edits a magazine, earns her own salary, and shares a small house with Sachiko, a psychology teacher. The routines of printing deadlines, office politics and quiet evenings seem to offer a settled life after the death of her husband. Yet an encounter with Sachiko’s cousin awakens a force she cannot easily reconcile with the affection and companionship already sustaining her.

In A Single Flower, Miyamoto Yuriko follows a working woman through autumn streets, institutions and intimate conversations. Questions about earning a living widen into questions about responsibility, desire and the place of an individual among other people. Asako’s scrutiny of social welfare work becomes inseparable from her scrutiny of herself.

First published in 1927, this thoughtful story preserves the tensions of work, friendship and sensual awakening without resolving them into a simple moral. This complete English translation includes all ten sections, the quoted verse and the original final scene, with explanatory notes on historical language and source readings. AI-assisted translation.