Fingers and a Ring and Other Stories of Tokyo

Six stories of Tokyo in 1929-1930 by Sasaki Toshirō (1900-1933), in a new English translation. A man hunts the city for the perfect woman's hand, and finds a thief; a wife follows her husband and her friend into a back-street theater; an engineer pays off his lover with his severance money; a schoolgirl finds out how her sister pays the rent; a burglar explains why he is the only honest man on the block. Sharp, ironic and quick, these tales from the pulp magazines and literary monthlies of the Depression era are about money, work and the small reversals that decide who eats.

Includes: The Finger; Fingers and a Ring; The Woman Who Stole Kisses; The Locomotive; The Secret Landscape; The Blast Furnace at the Bottom of the City. With translator's note and endnotes. AI-assisted translation.