The Woman with the Flying Head and Other Stories

by Kurahashi Yumiko, Atsuko Sakaki

Overview

This is an English-language anthology dedicated to the short stories of Kurahashi Yumiko (1935-), a Japanese novelist of profound intellectual powers. The eleven stories included in this volume suggest the breadth of the author's literary production, ranging from parodies of classical Japanese literature to cosmopolitan avant-garde works, from quasi-autobiography to science fiction. Her subversive fiction defies established definitions of "literature", "Japan", "modernity" and "femininity", and represents an important intellectual aspect of modern Japanese women's literature.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780765601575
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	09/30/1997
Series:	Japanese Women Writing Series
Pages:	122
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Kurahashi Yumiko, the original author of The Adventures of Sumiyakist Q (translated by Dennis Keene), is renowned for intellectual qualities comparable to those of Franz Kafka and Abe Köbö demonstrated in her short stories, essays, and novels. She has been awarded several literary prizes, including Joryu bungaku shô (Women's Literary Prize), Tamura Toshiko shô (Tamura Toshiko Prize), and Izumi Kyöka (Izumi Kyöka Prize).,
Atsuko Sakaki is Associate Professor of Japanese Literature in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University. Her publications include Köi to shite no shosetsu (Shin'yösha, 1996), Ibuse bungaku no honshitsu (Translation of Anthony Liman’s book on Ibuse Masuji; Meiji shoin, 1994), and a number of English and Japanese articles on Kurahashi Yumiko and others. She is finishing a book manuscript in English on the contextuality of narration in prose fiction by Soseki, Ogai, Tanizaki, and Ibuse.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 An Extraterrestrial; Chapter 2 We Are Lovers; Chapter 3 The House of the Black Cat; Chapter 4 The Woman with the Flying Head; Chapter 5 The Trade; Chapter 6 The Witch Mask; Chapter 7 Spring Night Dreams; Chapter 8 The Passage of Dreams; Chapter 9 The Special Place; Chapter 10 Flower Abstraction; Chapter 11 The Long Passage of Dreams; list List of Japanese Sources of the Translated Works;

Editorial Reviews

Yumiko has created a unique collection of short stories, some erotic, others science fiction, and a few of them absurdistand all of them well written. Each story seems to flow effortlessly into the next. "Flower Abstraction," a clearly erotic tale, abstractly relates women, flowers, arts, computers, and seduction, while the surreal title piece is a first-rate ghost story about two men who are in love with the head and essence of the same woman. Throughout, vivid descriptions subtly detail Japanese cultural nuances. The excellent translation includes an informative introduction and footnotes. For larger public libraries.Janis Williams, Shaker Heights P.L., Ohio

Library Journal

Contains eleven short stories by Japanese writer Yumiko Kurahashi (b. 1935), with a short introduction by translator and scholar of Kurahashi's work, Atsuko Sakaki, in which she discusses the transformation of Kurahashi's work from absurdist literature to a more logical, rationalistic type of literature. Paper edition (unseen), $19.95. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Booknews

Her fantastic, often erotic characters challenge our notions about rationality, sexual identity and the relationship of body and mind...While Kurahashi's work frequently evokes Kafka and Poe, these bizarre experimental stories are also distinctly her own. -- Gardner McFall, New York Times Book Review

Gardner McFall