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Hanakatsura: The Works Of Famous Literary Women In Japan, Tei Fujiu (Trans.), Kaho Miyake, Ichiyo Higuchi, Usurai Kitada, Otsuka Kusuo, Paul Royster (Ed.)

Zea E-Books Collection

Originally published in Tokyo in 1903, Hanakatsura (literally “garland of flowers”) features a biographical sketch of the activist and author Kishida Toshiko (Baroness Nakajima) plus four short stories by Japanese women writers of the Meiji era:

Akebonozome: A Cloth Dyed in Rainbow Colors, by Kaho Miyake

Ōtsugomori: The Last Day of the Year, by Ichiyo Higuchi

Onisenbiki: The Thousand Devils, by Usurai Kitada (Mrs. Kajita)

Shinobine, by Otsuka Kusuo

Compiled and translated by Tei Fujiu, four memorable and affecting stories depict women experiencing the frustrations of traditional family roles within an emergent commercial society at the turn of the century. …

An Adopted Husband [Sono Omokage], Futabatei Shimei, Buhachiro Mitsui, Gregg M. Sinclair

Zea E-Books Collection

This novel by Futabatei Shimei (1864–1909) falls squarely within the traditions of Naturalism in literature. Reminiscent of Theordore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie or Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome, it presents characters in the grip of forces they cannot resist or control. Tetsuya is a Professor of Economics and Finance who has accepted an adoption-marriage to pay the costs of his education. Now he finds himself miserable with his neglectful wife Toki-ko, and attracted to her illegitimate half-sister Sayo-ko, who cannot help herself from returning his affections. Enmeshed by their emotions, hemmed in by convention, tormented by guilt and remorse, the lovers careen …