The Apple and Other Stories

On a night train through northern Japan, a traveler listens to a stranger who says his love of children has forced him to leave Tokyo. As darkness gives way to morning, the encounter becomes harder to dismiss and impossible to resolve.

The Apple and Other Stories gathers four complete works by Toyoshima Yoshio. The Camphor Tree follows a child through the unraveling of his family’s fortunes, revealing both a father’s dignity and an unexpected sky. The Thief changes the mood with a comic tale of a lazy man whose magical shortcuts repeatedly fail.

In The Lake and the Two of Them, a lakeside teahouse keeper finds her Christian faith unsettled by a young man and his companion. Their conversations about love, prayer, and death unfold amid rain, moonlight, and autumn stillness.