Pathway to Japanese Literature

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

Old Hag's FaceAuthor: Sakaguchi Ango

Original Title	老嫗面
Author	坂口安吾
Genre	Modern Short Fiction
Author Type	Male Author
Summary	In the sweltering heat of early summer, Yasukawa—a man adrift in existential despair—impulsively shelters Tsukino, a volatile young woman wasting from tuberculosis. Her arrival fractures his already strained marriage to Matsue, whose simmering resentment toward her husband’s aimlessness curdles into vengeful fury. Tsukino, capricious and prone to theft, becomes a twisted mirror for Yasukawa’s yearning to “live meaningfully,” though her erratic behavior—lies, tantrums, and delusions of grandeur—only deepens the household’s chaos. Meanwhile, Yasukawa’s tyrannical mother, O’taki, watches their unraveling with glacial indifference, her cruelty etched into decades of emotional neglect. As Matsue’s fantasies of escape fixate on Yasukawa’s enigmatic friend Toyama, tensions escalate into violent clashes, exposing raw wounds of betrayal and self-loathing. Tsukino’s presence, a catalyst for grotesque desires and misplaced devotion, pushes Yasukawa toward a precipice where salvation and ruin blur. Amid suffocating heat and the stench of decay, each character grapples with ghosts of their own making—until a single act of desperation seals their fates in ways none could foresee.