Pathway to Japanese Literature
Discover Japan's stories—across time, across language.
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| Original Title | 火の子供 |
|---|---|
| Author | 原 民喜 |
| Genre | War & Social Literature |
| Author Type | Male Author |
| Summary | In 1949 Kanda, an observant man drifts through a city rebuilding, haunted by an unspoken past. A chance encounter with a young woman’s scarred face at a movie theater rips open the fragile seams of his present, plunging him back into the inferno of Hiroshima. He remembers the "pillar of fire," the "endless night," and the "strange stillness" of a world at death's threshold. Now, every encounter—a limping old man, scavenging figures, or children mimicking a fire's roar—becomes a fractured mirror reflecting his own profound loss and displacement. He grapples with a world where dreams are "burned to ashes" and existence itself feels like "drifting through empty air." Can he ever escape the pervasive shadow of catastrophe, or is he destined to remain a "child of fire," forever seeking a home that no longer exists? |
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