どくとるマンボウ航海記

by Morio Kita, 北 杜夫

たった六〇〇トンの調査船に乗りこんだ若き精神科医の珍無類の航海記。北杜夫の名を一躍高めたマンボウ・シリーズ第一作！

212 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1960

About the author

Morio Kita was the pen name of Japanese novelist, essayist, and psychiatrist, Sokichi Saitō. He attended Azabu High School, Matsumoto Higher School (now part of Shinshu University) and graduated from Tohoku University's School of Medicine.
He initially worked as a doctor at Keio University Hospital. Motivated by the collections of his father's poems and the books of German author Thomas Mann, he decided to become a novelist.
He is the father of the essayist Yuka Saitō.

Reviews

[Andrew Imrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was first published in Japan in 1960 (in Japanese) but I read it in translation (as part of the wonderful Kodansha series) sometime in the early 1990s. The English title is 'Doctor Mambo at Sea'. For some reason Goodreads appears to have no knowledge of the English edition (perhaps because it was only available in Japan and is now out of print). Anyway, it's travel literature of the highest order and tells of the author's experiences as a doctor on board a ship in the late 1950s sailing to Europe and the Middle East (as far as I can remember). It's a while since I've read it but it's a humorous and evocative take on both the period and life at sea. It's a gem of a book.