Novel
Embracing Family
抱擁家族
Nobuo Kojima · 1965
Synopsis
Miwa Shunsuke, who has spent time in the United States, earns his living giving lectures on the American way of life, according to Kirkus and Mostly Fiction. At home, his authority is crumbling: his wife Tokiko mocks him in front of their children and is having an affair with a young American soldier lodged in the house. He wants to save the marriage for the children, according to Mostly Fiction, but his efforts to assert himself fail, and he has a Western-style house built, as extravagant as it is out of place according to Publishers Weekly.
Context
The novel appeared in 1965. Weblio lists studies that read in it the disintegration of the family, the interpreter's role played by the husband and the image of America, and Publishers Weekly shows it torn between Western modernity and Japanese patriarchy. Yukiko Tanaka translated it into English for Dalkey Archive, and Élisabeth Suetsugu produced a French version for Philippe Picquier in 2006. Kirkus places the action in the Tokyo of the late 1940s.
Who it is for
A short novel, in unadorned prose, for those who want to see a Japanese household come apart through contact with the American occupier.
Prizes and reception
First winner of the Tanizaki Prize in 1965; Kirkus saw in the English version a snapshot of the upheavals of the postwar years.
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