Manufacturing a Human and Other Writings

A starving laborer wanders into a silent Osaka hospital and finds work assisting an operation whose purpose is more dreadful than he can imagine. In early Edo, a swordsman’s encounter with a frightened old man binds three celebrated thieves to very different futures. At Hideyoshi’s court, a master of ninjutsu and a quick-witted entertainer test the openings in power, pride, and their own consciences.

These three tales bring together macabre invention, swordplay, dark humor, and the hazards of serving powerful men. Five brief pieces on detective fiction accompany them, praising social insight and rebellious energy while attacking empty tricks, literary complacency, and art made merely to flatter.

Kunieda Shirō was a Japanese writer of historical adventure and detective fiction. First published between 1924 and 1926, these eight works appear here in a new English translation, preserving the stories’ quoted chronicles, comic verse, and the criticism’s pointed voice. Brief notes explain period terms and textual uncertainties.