The Bear and the Conductor and Other Writings

A train runs toward a dangerous curve while its conductor faces a bear in the freight car. In a Tokyo fruit shop, a young apprentice cannot understand why food must be wasted while hungry people cannot afford it. These complete stories by Kiuchi Takane lead an anthology of thirteen Japanese works.

Meiji thinkers debate religion, Sunday, national music, and elected assemblies. Nagatsuka Takashi visits a dusty soba shop and watches fishermen haul their nets; Kujō Takeko recalls a mountain summer. Fukuzawa Yukichi, Katsu Kaishū, and Enomoto Takeaki exchange sharply different replies to a manuscript. Labor and revolutionary poems speak through an exhausted worker, Lenin’s boots, and a puppet theater.

Matsuura Takeshirō’s Takeshima miscellany gathers historical accounts, voyages, plants, animals, and proposals for island development. Its uncertainties and contradictions remain visible. Complete endings, source verse lines, letters, marginal comments, and concise reader notes accompany this new English translation. AI-assisted translation, prepared and edited by Valentin Sarić.