Pathway to Japanese Literature

Discover Japan's stories—across time, across language.

Human ProsperityAuthor: Toyoshima Yoshio

Original Title	人間繁栄
Author	豊島与志雄
Genre	Historical Fiction
Author Type	Male Author
Summary	In a sprawling household marked by unconventional choices, Tsuda Yōzō presides over thirteen children born to five women, each named with pragmatic simplicity—boys numbered in birth order, girls after seasons or flowers. Now forty, Yōzō envisions a grand gathering to unite his dispersed family, viewing their sheer numbers as a testament to prosperity. Yet his legal wife, Yaeko, resists fiercely. Once a placid figure, her composure frays as she grapples with barrenness amid the ceaseless fertility of Yōzō’s mistresses. Their tense negotiations unravel hidden wounds: her simmering shame and desperation for motherhood clash with his detached pride in lineage. Flashbacks reveal Yōzō’s youthful despair—a near-suicide averted by a chance encounter that reshaped his philosophy into a relentless pursuit of progeny. As Yaeko’s anguish erupts in midnight confessions and Yōzō confronts the hollowness beneath his ambitions, fragile illusions of familial harmony teeter. Shadows of past loves and unspoken regrets linger, hinting at a reckoning where tradition, desire, and identity collide—but whether unity or rupture awaits remains tantalizingly uncertain.