The Letter Courier and Other Stories

An army officer visiting a Saxon castle notices a young woman whose reserve conceals an urgent request. A letter, a piano performance and a shepherd’s flute draw him into a conflict between noble lineage and personal freedom. In The Letter Courier, the grandeur of court life offers an unexpected form of refuge.

Under Construction brings a former intimacy into a Tokyo hotel where hammering has only just stopped. A counselor and a traveling singer exchange jokes, recollections and evasions, while the country’s modernization becomes part of their uneasy conversation.

The Last Phrase moves to eighteenth-century Osaka. Facing her father’s execution, a girl writes a petition offering the children’s lives in his place. Officials who expect obedience find themselves unsettled by a final, apparently respectful sentence.