Pathway to Japanese Literature

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

Father’s DeathAuthor: Kume Masao

Original Title	父の死
Author	久米正雄
Genre	Modern Short Fiction
Author Type	Male Author
Summary	In an unseasonably dry spring in rural Japan, an eight-year-old boy navigates a world shadowed by his father’s quiet despair. The principal of a local school, his father returns home one afternoon with a fabricated stomachache—a fleeting bond forged through shared pretense to shield the boy from scolding. But when a catastrophic fire consumes the school’s hexagonal tower and the revered Imperial Portrait, the family’s fragile normalcy shatters. The father, burdened by societal shame and perceived failure, retreats into anguished isolation, his stoic composure masking a turmoil only glimpsed through his son’s innocent eyes. As whispers of blame swirl through town, the boy grapples with fragmented fears: the eerie stillness of his father’s study, the weight of unspoken sorrows, and a funeral procession that mingles public admiration with private grief. Through a child’s lens of confusion and fleeting joys—the thrill of a funeral band, the strangeness of adult rituals—the story traces the quiet unraveling of paternal devotion and the haunting legacy of honor in a community where duty eclipses mercy. A poignant exploration of loss lingers in the spaces between a father’s silent plea and a son’s yearning to comprehend the invisible forces that fracture their world.