This Is How I Died! and Other Writings

A parliamentary candidate returns from a rural journey to learn that he has died. His family has mourned him, his remains have been brought home, and a doctor has certified his death. Discovering how a living man became officially dead opens an unsettling question: does he even want his former existence restored?

In The Secret, a husband’s apparently respectable life is threatened by an old acquaintance and a discovery he cannot understand. His confession exposes the distance between his judgment of others and his own conduct. Another story begins with a frozen corpse outside a Tokyo gate. The neighbors have ample grievances, but evidence refuses to yield a culprit.

Alongside these three complete stories, Hirabayashi, a Japanese writer and critic who died in 1931, states six demands for detective fiction, from convincing investigation to the legitimate surprise of a solution. Published between 1924 and 1929, these writings join narrative invention with skepticism about confident explanations.