Kan Kikuchi: 6 works in the original Japanese, with translation
Kan Kikuchi (December 26, 1888 – March 6, 1948) was a Japanese author and publisher who came to prominence with the plays Madame Pearl and Father Returns. He founded the publishing company Bungeishunjū and its monthly magazine, the Japan Writer's Association, and both the Akutagawa and Naoki Prizes, and also served as head of Daiei Motion Picture Company (currently Kadokawa Pictures).
Works in the library
- 藤十郎の恋Kan Kikuchi · Advanced
- マスクKan Kikuchi · Intermediate
- 三人兄弟Kan Kikuchi · Intermediate
- 納豆合戦Kan Kikuchi · Beginner
- 真珠夫人Kan Kikuchi · Advanced
- ある恋の話Kan Kikuchi · Intermediate
Cultural notes (selection)
Oharame were women from the Ōhara area north of Kyoto who carried firewood and unstripped logs into the city to sell, a familiar peddler figure in early modern Kyoto. Here their street cries evoke a spring day in the city.
「衝心」 refers to a sudden death such as cardiac paralysis; it was a medical term of modern-era Japanese, now rarely used. 「脂肪心」 means fatty infiltration of the heart, and the doctor uses it here to warn against becoming overweight.
丹波 (Tamba) was one of Japan's ancient provinces under the ritsuryō system, located in what is now central Kyoto Prefecture and eastern Hyōgo Prefecture. Here "国" refers to an old administrative division, not a modern nation-state.
In the Meiji and Taishō periods, nattō vendors selling on the streets of Tokyo were mostly women and the elderly. In the early morning they carried poles with loads of nattō wrapped in straw bundles (藁苞), peddling them through the streets. Their drawn-out cries of "Natto, natto!" were an everyday morning sound in Tokyo at the time.