An Armed City

In a Chinese city, the match factory’s saws shriek while laborers push sail-equipped wheelbarrows past barracks and crowded shacks. Japanese managers seek profit and protection; workers face hunger and poisoning; soldiers arrive with orders that make the lives of civilians increasingly expendable.

An Armed City follows these intersecting worlds as commercial exploitation becomes inseparable from military force. Drug dealing, family hardship, factory labor, political leaflets, and conversations among soldiers build toward the destruction of a city and the uncertain fate of those caught within it. Kuroshima’s attention moves between individual suffering and the institutions that produce it.

A major writer of Japanese proletarian literature, Kuroshima Denji brings an uncompromising political voice to scenes of work, fear, violence, and survival. This complete translation preserves all thirty-three chapters, the novel’s quoted documents and songs, and its concluding passages. AI-assisted translation.