Running Boy and Other Stories , livre ebook

130

pages

English

Ebooks

2020

Écrit par
Megumu Sagisawa ,
traduit par Tyran Grillo

Publié par
Cornell University Press

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130

pages

English

Ebooks

2020

Lire un extrait

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne En savoir plus

Publié par

Cornell University Press

Date de parution

15 avril 2020

EAN13

9781501749902

Langue

English

With this newly translated version of The Running Boy, the fiction of Megumu Sagisawa makes its long-overdue first appearance in English. Lovingly rendered with a critical introduction by the translator, this collection of three stories, written in 1989, sits on the thinnest part of Japan's economic bubble and provides and cautionary glimpse into the malaise of its impending collapse.From the aging regulars of a shabby snack bar in "Galactic City" to the mental breakdowns of "A Slender Back," and the family secrets lurking within the title story between them, Sagisawa offers a trilogy of laser-focused character studies. Exploring dichotomies of past versus present, young versus old, life versus death, and countless shades of meaning beyond, she elicits vibrant commonalities of the human condition from some of its most ennui-laden examples. A curious form of affirmation awaits her readers, who may just come out of her monochromatic word paintings with more colorful realizations about themselves and the world at large. Such insight is rare in a writer so young, and this book is a fitting testament to her premature death, the legacy of which is sure to inspire a new generation of readers in the post-truth era.

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Publié par

Cornell University Press

Date de parution

15 avril 2020

EAN13

9781501749902

Langue

English

The Running Boy and Other Stories

By Megumu Sagisawa

Translated with an Introduction by Tyran Grillo

CORNELL EAST ASIA SERIES An Imprint of Cornell University Press Ithaca and London

Series: New Japanese Horizons Series Editors: Michiko N. Wilson / Gustav Heldt / Doug Merwin

Copyright ©2020 by Tyran Grillo. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850.

First published 2020 by Cornell University Press

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

Names: Sagisawa, Megumu, 196—2004, author. | Grillo, Tyran, translator, writer of introduction. Title: The running boy and other stories / by Megumu Sagisawa ; translated with an introduction by Tyran Grillo Other titles: Kakeru shōnen. English Description: Ithaca [New York] : Cornell University Press, 2020. | Series: Cornell East Asia series no. 201 | Identiﬁers: LCCN 2019052591 (print) | LCCN 2019052592 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501749889 (paperback) | ISBN 9781501749896 (epub) | ISBN 9781501749902 (pdf) Subjects: LCSH: Short stories, Japanese—20th century—Translations into English. Classiﬁcation: LCC PL861.A4267 K3513 2020 (print) | LCC PL861.A4267 (ebook) | DDC 895.63/5—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019052591 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019052592

Cover: Photographs used with permissions from Sunyoung Yim (front:“Running Boy”) and Alao Yokogi (back:photograph of Megumu Sagisawa).

Number 201 in the Cornell East Asia Series

Contents

Running on Water: A Translator’s Introduction1 Galactic City14 The Running Boy41 A Slender Back90

The Running Boy and Other Stories

Running on Water    Tyran Grillo

Confronted with the reality that we understand noth ing and are in over our heads, it’s all we can do to run the other way. Diary entry of Megumu Sagisawa, July 5, 2000

egumu Sagisawa was born Megumi Matsuo, the youngest M of four girls, on June 20, 1968, in Tokyo. At nineteen, she became the youngest author to win the Bungakukai Prize for new authors for her novelThe Path by the River (Kawaberi no michi, 1987). Two years later her followup,The Deceased (Kaerenu hi tobito, 1989), was nominated for the prestigious Akutagawa Prize. Her work has been translated into Italian and Korean, and here for the ﬁrst time into English. In addition to being a proliﬁc ﬁction writer, she was a noted essayist and a translator of children’s picture books. At twentytwo, she married ﬁlm director Gō Rijū, only to divorce him a year later. She drove a stick shift, was known to play a mean game of mahjongg, and could drink anyone under the table. The contrast between her sleek exterior and hardened interior fed her writing with the experiential authenticity of someone twice her age. Sagisawa’s oeuvre thus provokes awareness of inevitable dis comforts. Her philosophy is built not around the realization that

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