The Family, Volume 1

Sankichi hopes that marriage and a teaching post in the mountains will let him begin a life of his own. Yet the old Koizumi household follows him through debts, illness, and the demands of brothers who cannot escape their inherited responsibilities. His sister Tane, mistress of the once-prosperous Hashimoto house, faces another kind of collapse: the unraveling of the marriage and household to which she has devoted herself.

In this first volume, domestic routines carry the weight of larger changes. A family photograph, a borrowed mosquito net, a child’s cries, a letter concealed or opened—each brings private wishes into conflict with the authority of the house. Women and men negotiate affection, humiliation, duty, and the uncertain promise of independence.

Shimazaki Tōson, a major voice in modern Japanese literature, follows these lives with close attention to the material and emotional textures of family life. This complete English translation preserves the novel’s ten chapters and continues in The Family, Volume 2.