Selected Essays from Mukōda Kuniko's Chichi no wabijō (Father's Letter of Apology) = 向田邦子「父の詫び状」 からの選集

Abstract: This translation of three of Mukōda Kuniko's essays, taken from her collection of essays entitled Chichi no wabijō (Father's Letter of Apology), is the first instalment in a three-part series to be published in this journal. This text, despite its many remarkable qualities, has never been translated into English before. It offers fresh perspectives on family relationships and on the complex nature of patriarchy as a lived experience in the Shōwa period, also sensitively capturing the suffering of ordinary people under wartime conditions in Japan. Mukōda also deserves to be recognized as a literary figure, with a fine artistic sensibility. Reminiscent of Natsume Sōseki's essays, Chichi no wabijō too registers, seemingly randomly, events and sensations from times past, and through this mode of free association, imbues the world she observes with beauty and significance.