On Hating Flies and Other Stories

A little boy watches colored thread drift before his eyes, then finds the flies around him turning into a frightening procession. On a lonely mountain pass, a traveler meets a beautiful woman whose connection to the writer he admires leads to an extraordinary revelation. In another rainy journey, a small water-heating pot becomes a luminous keepsake of a dead friend.

These six stories bring together the uncanny and the comic. Two travel pictures follow Yaji and Kitahachi through New Year’s drinking, an ingenious gift, and an unexpectedly moving account of a widow’s life. “The Gold Watch” turns a seemingly generous reward into a confrontation between exploited laborers and a wealthy foreigner.

Izumi Kyōka gives ordinary objects—thread, onions, a watch, a silk pouch—a startling presence, while letting humor, longing, fear, and anger alter the world around them. This complete new translation preserves all six supplied works in their original order, with reader notes for names, allusions, period language, and textual problems.