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OtogizōshiAuthor: Dazai Osamu
| Original Title | お伽草紙 |
|---|---|
| Author | 太宰 治 |
| Genre | Modern Short Fiction |
| Author Type | Male Author |
| Summary | Amidst the ominous rumble of air raids, a father seeks refuge in a cramped shelter with his family, clutching a picture book to soothe his restless daughter. As anti-aircraft fire echoes overhead, he narrates folktales of cheek-lumped old men and moonlit encounters with mischievous mountain spirits—stories that twist into something stranger in his mind. Between readings, his imagination brews new myths: a lonely sake-loving elder’s lump mysteriously vanishes after dancing for red-skinned oni; a dignified neighbor’s attempt to replicate this feat backfires grotesquely. Elsewhere, Urashima Taro, a wistful aesthete, follows a loquacious turtle into the Dragon Palace’s shimmering depths, where pearls form mountains and Princess Otohime’s koto music haunts like a half-remembered dream. The father’s voice wavers between shelter and saga, weaving reality’s tension with tales where whimsy and melancholy blur—a dance of survival and storytelling where every character, human or not, yearns for escape from their invisible cages. Danger hums aboveground; below, stories pulse with life, fragile and defiant as the fragile truce between bombs. |
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