American Stories - (Modern Asian Literature) by Kafū & Nagai (Paperback)

About the Book

"American Stories" is based on Nagai Kafu's sojourn from Japan to Michigan, Washington State, and New York City in the early years of the twentieth century. Like Tocqueville a century before him, Kafu casts a fresh, keen eye on a vibrant and diverse America, painting a broad portrait of the challenges of American life for the poor, the foreign born, and the disaffected. Many vignettes involve encounters with fellow Japanese or Chinese immigrants. Mitsuko Iriye's introduction provides important cultural and biographical background and literary analysis to fully appreciate the intellectual and artistic achievements of Kafu's collection.

Book Synopsis

Nagai Kafu is one of the greatest modern Japanese writers, but until now his classic collection, American Stories, based on his sojourn from Japan to Washington State, Michigan, and New York City in the early years of the twentieth century, has never been available in English. Here, with a detailed and insightful introduction, is an elegant translation of Kafu's perceptive and lyrical account.

Like de Tocqueville a century before, Kafu casts a fresh, keen eye on vibrant and varied America--world fairs, concert halls, and college campuses; saloons, the immigrant underclass, and red-light districts. Many of his vignettes involve encounters with fellow Japanese or Chinese immigrants, some of whom are poorly paid laborers facing daily discrimination. The stories paint a broad landscape of the challenges of American life for the poor, the foreign born, and the disaffected, peopled with crisp individual portraits that reveal the daily disappointments and occasional euphorias of modern life.

Translator Mitsuko Iriye's introduction provides important cultural and biographical background about Kafu's upbringing in rapidly modernizing Japan, as well as literary context for this collection. In the first story, "Night Talk in a Cabin," three young men sailing from Japan to Seattle each reveal how poor prospects, shattered confidence, or a broken heart has driven him to seek a better life abroad. In "Atop the Hill," the narrator meets a fellow Japanese expatriate at a small midwestern religious college, who slowly reveals his complex reasons for leaving behind his wife in Japan. Caught between the pleasures of America's cities and the stoicism of its small towns, he wonders if he can ever return home.

Kafu plays with the contradictions and complexities of early twentieth-century America, revealing the tawdry, poor, and mundane underside of New York's glamour in "Ladies of the Night" while celebrating the ingenuity, cosmopolitanism, and freedom of the American city in "Two Days in Chicago." At once sensitive and witty, elegant and gritty, these stories provide a nuanced outsider's view of the United States and a perfect entrance into modern Japanese literature.

Review Quotes

Elegant... the language is delicate and many and many images could have been lifted from haiku.... Kafu's work was very sophisticated for its time, and today is eminently readable as entertainment and as the adventures of a young man searching for points of connection between Japan and the West.-- "Books in Canada"

In a style that is lean and powerful, this Japanese novelist and short-story writer opens a door to early-1900s America that is riveting, poignant, and painful.... Kafu is brilliant at evoking the strange convocation of two cultures.--John Dolen "Sun Sentinel"

Inventive, surprisingly fresh... Kafu's observations are sharp, insightful, and even funny.... American Stories is a strong work, well worth the read.-- "Blogcritics.org"

One of the great figures of contemporary Japanese literature.... [This] collection of twenty-three stories and essays is a perceptive outsider's view of American people (particularly the new immigrant classes), places, and customs, and a sharp-eyed tour of the world's fairs, concert halls, college campuses, saloons, and red-light districts of pre-First World War United States.-- "The Globe and Mail"

About the Author

Nagai Kafu (1879-1959) was a Japanese novelist whose translated works include Rivalry: A Geisha's Tale, Autumn Wind and Other Stories, American Stories, and During the Rains and Flowers in the Shades: Two Novellas.

Mitsuko Iriye is an independent scholar working in the field of comparative literature.