When the Cherries Ripen

Kishimoto Sutekichi has come to Tokyo from the countryside. Living under the protection of a merchant household, he attends a Christian school, reads poetry and biography, and begins to imagine a future beyond the obligations that surround him. Friendship gives him companions, but neither learning nor religious conviction can quiet his growing uncertainty about love.

When the Cherries Ripen follows Sutekichi through student friendships, a crowded theater, literary ambitions, and his first work as a teacher. Conversations, walks, and remembered encounters gradually expose the conflicts between gratitude and independence, family expectations and desire. A circle of young writers and students helps him see possibilities that his sheltered life has kept at a distance.

Shimazaki Tōson (1872–1943), a major Japanese novelist and poet, gives his young protagonist a searching inward voice and a vividly observed Meiji setting. The novel was serialized in 1913 and 1914–1918.