Pathway to Japanese Literature
Discover Japan's stories—across time, across language.
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| Original Title | 夜烏 |
|---|---|
| Author | 平出 修 |
| Genre | War & Social Literature |
| Author Type | Male Author |
| Summary | In a desolate autumn village where blighted crops and crushing poverty drive men to distant labor, a fragile community is shattered when Gihei’s wife is arrested for theft. The incident ignites whispers and suspicion among the thirty households, their stagnant lives pierced by scandal. As the accused woman faces interrogation in her squalid home—a hovel reeking of desperation—her defiance masks a primal will to survive, her silence guarding stolen goods that sustain her starving children. Ostracized and stripped of dignity, she navigates a world where even temple shadows taunt her with unattainable solace. A late-night sermon at the landlord’s estate offers fleeting hope, drawing her into its glow, yet the congregation’s cold stares cement her exile. Amidst windswept fields and crumbling kinship, her turmoil mirrors the village’s decay: a struggle against hunger, shame, and the crushing weight of survival. Haunted by visions of her imprisoned husband and the relentless scorn of neighbors, she teeters between defiance and despair, her story a raw testament to humanity’s fraying edges in the face of unyielding hardship. |
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