Pathway to Japanese Literature
Discover Japan's stories—across time, across language.
← Back
'Fish’s Preface'Author: Hayashi Fumiko
| Original Title | 魚の序文 |
|---|---|
| Author | 林 芙美子 |
| Genre | Modern Short Fiction |
| Author Type | Female Author |
| Summary | In a quiet suburb shadowed by a graveyard, a newlywed couple navigates the fragile edges of poverty and intimacy. The husband, a disillusioned graduate, wrestles with failure as job rejections pile up, while his wife Kikuko—childlike yet cunning—stitches kimonos, forages wild greens, and plucks flowers from graves to sell. Their days blur between haunting dreams of ghosts and bitter quarrels over pawned belongings, their love as tenuous as the smoke curling from the crematory nearby. Kikuko’s whimsical poems and stolen bouquets contrast sharply with their grim reality, her resilience both baffling and beguiling her husband. As they wander past wheat fields and crumbling graves, fleeting moments of tenderness emerge: shared songs, sardine feasts, and whispered hopes dashed by walls of debt. Yet beneath their struggles simmers a raw, unspoken devotion—two souls clinging to scraps of dignity in a world that leaves no memories. Will their fragile bond withstand the weight of despair, or unravel like the threads of Kikuko’s mended kimonos? |
← Return to List← Return to TOP