The Broken Bridge

Stranded in Hokkaido after a failed enterprise in Karafuto, Yoshio Tamura looks for a business that might restore his independence. A journey on horseback takes him through ranches, settlements, forests, and river crossings, where commercial possibilities mingle with his reflections on conquest, desire, and the struggle to live.

Back in Sapporo, those possibilities narrow. Friends struggle to finance a magazine, a promoter offers an uncertain partnership, and Yoshio needs money for his return to Tokyo. His mistress Tori arrives in need of treatment, while his relationship with Shikishima in the licensed quarter becomes a painful contest over affection and dependence.

First serialized in 1911, The Broken Bridge is the fourth work in Iwano Hōmei’s five-work cycle. This complete English translation retains all seventeen chapters, correspondence, financial arguments, and the embedded Ainu song. Notes clarify period references and identify uncertain readings without resolving away the narrator’s contradictions.