A Whirlpool of Smiles and Other Stories

A writer goes to an embassy dinner where conversation falters and smiles conceal more than they reveal. Another travels with his lover through the summer heat, carrying worries about his children, resentment toward a fellow writer, and a toothache that turns every inconvenience into an affront. At a seaside hotel, a sick man’s quiet evening is interrupted by a jealous lover’s violence.

These three complete stories by Tokuda Shūsei, first published in 1928 and 1929, examine relationships through small encounters, bodily discomfort, and the judgments people make about one another. Receptions, railway compartments, hotel verandas, and sickrooms become places where tenderness and selfishness are difficult to separate. The narratives leave their tensions visible, including the uncomfortable limits of their characters’ understanding.

Shūsei was a major Japanese novelist associated with naturalism, attentive to the texture of ordinary lives. This new English translation preserves the stories’ concealed names, changes of narrative perspective, and original endings, with brief notes on literary references, period objects, and textual uncertainties. AI-assisted translation.