Kikuchi Kan: Stories

At a golden ginkgo tree, three brothers choose three different roads. On a theatre stage, an actor mistakes a woman’s rapture for love. In a letter to the Minister of Justice, a bereaved man asks why the consolation of a murderer should matter more than the grief of his victims.

First published in 1919 and 1920, these five works by Kikuchi Kan move between a folk tale, a remembered romance and the uneasy certainties of modern life. A reporter pursues a sensational rumour about a Russian princess; a man frightened of influenza discovers how easily his ideas of courage change. Clear-eyed, compassionate and sometimes fiercely accusatory, the stories examine the distance between what people believe and what their actions reveal.

Contents: A Letter of Protest; Three Brothers; Princess Tatiana; A Love Story; The Mask.