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Kyōka Izumi: 6 works in the original Japanese, with translation

Izumi Kyōka (real name Izumi Kyōtarō; 4 November 1873 – 7 September 1939) was a Japanese novelist, writer, and kabuki playwright active in the prewar period. He was known for a Romanticism favoring supernatural tales influenced by the Edo period, and is considered one of the supreme stylists of modern Japanese literature.

Works in the library

Cultural notes (selection)

参謀本部編纂の地図 The Holy Man of Mount Koya

The General Staff was the military organ in charge of army command and land surveying in the early Meiji period, and the topographical maps produced by its Land Survey Division were the most detailed of the time. That the travelling monk carries such a map to cross the deep-mountain back routes between Hida and Shinshū shows how remote and difficult these paths were.

赤十字の看護婦 The Surgery Room

Refers to nurses of the Japanese Red Cross Society. Founded in the Meiji period (with the Hakuaisha as its predecessor), the society trained nurses and sent them to hospitals and battlefields, and their uniforms and badges were strictly regulated.

腕車を曳く The Night Patrol

A rickshaw (jinrikisha). Before the mid-Meiji period it was the main means of urban transport in Japan, and the pullers were mostly poor labourers. At the time the Metropolitan Police Department had regulations governing pullers' clothing, lanterns and so on. In the text, the old man is scolded for his exposed torn momohiki, which reflects how the police controlled rickshaw pullers' appearance.

菜種の花 春昼

Rapeseed flowers, known in Japan as 菜種 or 菜の花, are a spring seasonal topic in haiku. Around March they bloom in swathes of golden yellow.