March 15, 1928

Before dawn, policemen enter homes and a union office. Workers are pulled from their beds, children watch their fathers disappear, and families must face another day without the people they depend on. Inside the police station, prisoners argue about courage, discipline, and what it means to remain loyal to a movement under pressure.

Kobayashi Takiji follows these arrests through sharply different lives: a worker who finds resolve in anger, an intellectual whose thoughts return to his daughter, an office employee overwhelmed by confinement, and women who carry the burden outside. Songs, bitter jokes, and words scratched into cell walls become means of endurance, while interrogation exposes the violence beneath official claims of justice.

First published in 1928, this powerful work joins political urgency with intimate attention to fear, tenderness, and solidarity. This complete new English translation preserves the original censorship marks, songs, and inscriptions, with concise notes on readings, historical terms, and textual difficulties. AI-assisted translation.