Pathway to Japanese Literature
Discover Japan's stories—across time, across language.
← Back
Southern HooknoseAuthor: Hisao Jūran
| Original Title | 南部の鼻曲り |
|---|---|
| Author | 久生 十蘭 |
| Genre | Fantasy & Sci-Fi |
| Author Type | Male Author |
| Summary | In the unforgiving Alaskan wilderness, two men clash over identity and belonging. Tamamoto Jutarō, a war veteran turned interpreter with a prosthetic leg, reluctantly records the tale of Molly Shimotome Hideshige—a Japanese-American adrift between nations. Their fraught bond begins aboard a storm-battered ship bound for Quenslow, where Molly’s porcelain elegance and cocaine-tinged fragility mask a desperate resolve: to shed his Japanese roots and forge himself anew as an American. Amidst cannery drudgery and salmon-stained labor, their rivalry ignites—Molly’s delicate hands fumbling cans, Tamamoto’s taunts sharp as filleting knives. Yet beneath the hostility simmers an uneasy kinship, tested when Molly vanishes into Alaskan muck, forcing a rescue that cracks open vulnerabilities neither will admit. Years later, war-scarred and haunted, Tamamoto seeks closure, wondering if Molly’s metamorphosis was a triumph or tragedy. A story of fractured loyalties, visceral survival, and the ghosts that cling to skin and soil, it asks: Can one ever outrun the self? |
← Return to List← Return to TOP