Those Who Drown and Other Stories

A librarian leaves years of mechanical work behind and seeks a different life in Tokyo’s pleasure quarters. There he meets a woman whose loneliness unsettles his hopes. Their attachment unfolds through three distinct voices: his own, hers, and that of a boy who watches them beside the river.

Those Who Drown and Other Stories brings together four complete works by Toyoshima Yoshio. A Crime in a Marginalized Community depicts the dangerous convergence of isolation, possessiveness, and desire in a rural setting. Its respectful English title acknowledges the discriminatory historical wording of the Japanese original.

The two children’s stories move into stranger, gentler territory. Hachikō of the Dogs follows a generous man whose growing pack forces a village to confront the limits of its gratitude. The Tanuki Festival tells of frustrated hunters, an ingenious elder, and a shapeshifting animal who finds a place among its human neighbors.