Two short stories that mirror each other so closely they almost seem to share the same protagonists. Both follow mothers left to raise their children alone after the loss of their husband, and caring for a child with disabilities and his siblings. Yet each story is shaped by a different elemental force. The first is steeped in water: its divinity, its necessity, and its quiet, merciless power to take life. The second unfolds around more elusive boundaries—a dog that slips through walls, a mysterious door that may be real or imagined, and the enclosing walls of a school for disabled children. What lingers most is the tone: hushed, gentle, and deeply atmospheric. A subtle, moving introduction to an author I’m eager to explore further.
“The bodies were to be recovered after the water level receded in five or six months time. Even now, those people lie in the water’s deep embrace. A hundred days are a hundred years. Time passes silently; water is a seamless world. The water spreads through the earth, and the people in its embrace are now rivers, now the sea. Because we on terra firma sense the watery realm close by us, while knowing that it is out of our reach, we make it the bearer of some wish or hope – of feelings that might be called prayers. I do this, and so does my child. For we can never forget the watery realm, even though we haven’t the remotest idea what it’s like.”
“The Watery Realm’ (Suifu) was first published in the May 1982 issue of the literary monthly Bungei. Of Dogs and Walls’ (Inu to hei ni tsuite’) was first published in the January 2014 issue of the literary monthly magazine Shincho. This is the first time they have been translated into English.