Fumiko Hayashi – författare

In this groundbreaking novel, Fumiko Hayashi tells the powerful story of tormented love and one woman's struggle to navigate the cruel realities of postwar Japan. The novel's characters, particularly its resilient heroine Koda Yukiko, find themselves trapped in their own drifting, unable to break out of the morass of indecisiveness. Set in the years during and after World War II, their lives and damaged psyches reflect the confusion of the times in which they live. Floating Clouds follows Yukiko as she moves from the physically lush and beautiful surroundings of Japanese-occupied French Indochina to the desolation and chaos of postwar Japan. Hayashi's spare, affecting novel presents a rare portrait of Japanese colonialism and the harshness of Japan's postwar experience from the perspective of a woman. Its rich cast of characters, drawn from the back alleys of urban Japan and the low rungs of society, offers an unforgettable portrait of Japanese society after the war. The tortured relationship between Yukiko and Tomioka, a minor official with the Department of Agriculture and Forestry, provides the dramatic center of the novel.Yukiko meets Tomioka while working as a typist for the Japanese ministry in Indochina, where they begin their affair. After the war, Tomioka returns to his wife but remains emotionally inscrutable to Yukiko, refusing to break off their relationship. Meanwhile, Yukiko must find her way in a radically changed postwar Japan. When Yukiko and Tomioka's lives once again cross, the two set down a path shaped by their passion and sense of desperation. First published in 1951, Floating Clouds is a classic of modern Japanese literature and was later made into a film by legendary Japanese director Mikio Naruse.

In this groundbreaking novel, Fumiko Hayashi tells the powerful story of tormented love and one woman's struggle to navigate the cruel realities of postwar Japan. The novel's characters, particularly its resilient heroine Koda Yukiko, find themselves trapped in their own drifting, unable to break out of the morass of indecisiveness. Set in the years during and after World War II, their lives and damaged psyches reflect the confusion of the times in which they live. Floating Clouds follows Yukiko as she moves from the physically lush and beautiful surroundings of Japanese-occupied French Indochina to the desolation and chaos of postwar Japan. Hayashi's spare, affecting novel presents a rare portrait of Japanese colonialism and the harshness of Japan's postwar experience from the perspective of a woman. Its rich cast of characters, drawn from the back alleys of urban Japan and the low rungs of society, offers an unforgettable portrait of Japanese society after the war. The tortured relationship between Yukiko and Tomioka, a minor official with the Department of Agriculture and Forestry, provides the dramatic center of the novel.Yukiko meets Tomioka while working as a typist for the Japanese ministry in Indochina, where they begin their affair. After the war, Tomioka returns to his wife but remains emotionally inscrutable to Yukiko, refusing to break off their relationship. Meanwhile, Yukiko must find her way in a radically changed postwar Japan. When Yukiko and Tomioka's lives once again cross, the two set down a path shaped by their passion and sense of desperation. First published in 1951, Floating Clouds is a classic of modern Japanese literature and was later made into a film by legendary Japanese director Mikio Naruse.

Engaging short stories by the Japanese author, Hayashi Fumiko, translated by Timothy Iles, most appearing for the first time in English. Hayashi Fumiko (1903–1951) was an influential and successful Japanese writer known for depicting realistic, sympathetic characters in a simple, accessible style. In these fourteen short stories, chosen and translated by Timothy Iles, portraits of Japanese life in the immediate pre- and post-war years are loosely arranged in an order that traces an arc from innocence to corruption and reveals an increasing sophistication of character and ideas. These are small, engaging plots of everyday life: travel, a first employment away from home, the loneliness of postwar widows, infidelities, and the small revelations of day-to-day drama in everyday lives. Hayashi’s work represents a high-point in compassionate, humanistic fiction. The book includes an introduction by Iles that describes aspects of Hayashi’s life and analyzes her style, themes, and political influences.

Hayashi Fumiko, one of the most popular prose writers of the Showa era, began writing as a down-and-out poet wandering the streets of 1920s Tokyo. In these translations of her first poetry collection, I Saw a Pale Horse (Aouma wo mitari) and Selected Poems from Diary of a Vagabond (Hōrōki), Fumiko's literary origins are colorfully revealed. Little known in the west, these early poetic texts focus on Fumiko's unconventional early life, and her construction of a female subject that would challenge, with gusto and panache, accepted notions not only of class, family, and gender but also of female poetic practice.

Hayashi Fumiko, one of the most popular prose writers of the Showa era, began writing as a down-and-out poet wandering the streets of 1920s Tokyo. In these translations of her first poetry collection, I Saw a Pale Horse (Aouma wo mitari) and Selected Poems from Diary of a Vagabond (Hōrōki), Fumiko's literary origins are colorfully revealed. Little known in the west, these early poetic texts focus on Fumiko's unconventional early life, and her construction of a female subject that would challenge, with gusto and panache, accepted notions not only of class, family, and gender but also of female poetic practice.