Fureppu Trip

A poet joins a sightseeing voyage north from Yokohama to Karafuto, where shipboard revelry gives way to forests, fishing towns, farms, Russian refugee households, and a tundra bright with berries. At the journey’s farthest spectacle, fur seals crowd a rocky island beneath clouds of birds. Hakushū turns the scene into an exuberant imaginary film.

The book continually changes its form. Refrains sway with the ship’s rigging; old poems rise through memories of Otaru; conversations wander through art, religion, bureaucracy, and drink. Letters to a friend and a child bring the journey home, while meetings with strangers reveal both sympathy and the prejudices of a Japanese traveler in the colonial period.

Kitahara Hakushū was one of modern Japan’s leading poets and writers of children’s songs. First serialized from 1925 to 1927, this travel book brings his ear for rhythm and eye for color into lively, sometimes disquieting contact with everyday life. This complete new English translation includes the poems, songs, and closing film sequence, with concise notes on names, cultural references, and unusual source readings.