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岬 [Misaki]
作家の郷里・紀州の小都市を舞台に、のがれがたい血のしがらみに閉じ込められた青年の、癒せぬ渇望、愛と憎しみ、生命の模索を鮮烈な文体でえがいて圧倒的な評価を得た芥川賞受賞作。この小説は、著者独自の哀切な主題旋律を初めて文学として定着させた記念碑的作品として、広く感動を呼んだ。『枯木灘』『地の果て 至上の時』と展開して中上世界の最高峰をなす三部作の第一章に当たる。表題作の他、初期の力作「黄金比の朝」「火宅」「浄徳寺ツアー」の三篇を収める。
267 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 19, 1976
45 people want to read
About the author
Kenji Nakagami
49 books48 followersSee 中上 健次.
Kenji Nakagami (中上健次 Nakagami Kenji, August 2, 1946 – August 12, 1992) was a Japanese novelist and essayist. He is well known as the first, and so far the only, post-war Japanese writer to identify himself publicly as a Burakumin, a member of one of Japan’s long-suffering outcaste groups. His works depict the intense life-experiences of men and women struggling to survive in a Burakumin community in western Japan. His most celebrated novels include “Misaki” (The Cape), which won the Akutagawa Prize in 1976, and “Karekinada” (The Sea of Withered Trees), which won both the Mainichi and Geijutsu Literary Prizes in 1977.
During the 1980s Nakagami was an active and controversial figure in the Japanese literary world, and his work was the subject of much debate among scholars and literary critics. As one reviewer put it, "Nakagami was the first writer from the ghetto to make it into the mainstream and to attempt to tell other Japanese, however fictively or even fantastically, about life at the rough end of the economic miracle." Nakagami was at the height of his fame when he died, of kidney cancer, at the age of 46.
(from Wikipedia)
Kenji Nakagami (中上健次 Nakagami Kenji, August 2, 1946 – August 12, 1992) was a Japanese novelist and essayist. He is well known as the first, and so far the only, post-war Japanese writer to identify himself publicly as a Burakumin, a member of one of Japan’s long-suffering outcaste groups. His works depict the intense life-experiences of men and women struggling to survive in a Burakumin community in western Japan. His most celebrated novels include “Misaki” (The Cape), which won the Akutagawa Prize in 1976, and “Karekinada” (The Sea of Withered Trees), which won both the Mainichi and Geijutsu Literary Prizes in 1977.
During the 1980s Nakagami was an active and controversial figure in the Japanese literary world, and his work was the subject of much debate among scholars and literary critics. As one reviewer put it, "Nakagami was the first writer from the ghetto to make it into the mainstream and to attempt to tell other Japanese, however fictively or even fantastically, about life at the rough end of the economic miracle." Nakagami was at the height of his fame when he died, of kidney cancer, at the age of 46.
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 31, 2022
Kenji Nakagami’s novel Misaki/ De Kaap/ Le Cap/ The Cape is a successful example (the only I know) of a story set in an environment of ‘burakumin’, a low social class in Japan. The burakumin have a sad history of discrimination, that isn’t alltogether over yet.
The main character of this short novel is Akiyuki. He is a navvy, and he likes his work. It is a complicated family he belongs to. His boss is married to his stepsister Mie. Akiyuki has the same mother as Mie, but another father, who is called ‘the bloke’. Akiyuki despises his real father and on the other hand he secretly has some respect for him. Awful things happen in the family, and during the turmoil that it generates, the mother organises a memorial service for her twentyfive years ago diseased husband. In the finale Akiyuki, after a long hesitation, comes to an act from which he gets a clear idea of his own moral identity.
All of this sound vague and abstract and theory, but I can’t give away much more without ‘disturbing’ your own reader’s experience. For me, together with the excellent afterword of the translator Ad Blankestijn!, it has given a lively insight in the geographical region of Japan where the author spent his youth and foremost insight in some socio-cultural aspects of the burakumin class. That’s because the author was a buraku himself.
A very long time burakumin lived as outcasts in separate villages. Although their position officially has improved, nowadays still people are looking down upon those people.
The novel was first published in 1976; the same year it won the prestigious Akutagama prize. JM
The main character of this short novel is Akiyuki. He is a navvy, and he likes his work. It is a complicated family he belongs to. His boss is married to his stepsister Mie. Akiyuki has the same mother as Mie, but another father, who is called ‘the bloke’. Akiyuki despises his real father and on the other hand he secretly has some respect for him. Awful things happen in the family, and during the turmoil that it generates, the mother organises a memorial service for her twentyfive years ago diseased husband. In the finale Akiyuki, after a long hesitation, comes to an act from which he gets a clear idea of his own moral identity.
All of this sound vague and abstract and theory, but I can’t give away much more without ‘disturbing’ your own reader’s experience. For me, together with the excellent afterword of the translator Ad Blankestijn!, it has given a lively insight in the geographical region of Japan where the author spent his youth and foremost insight in some socio-cultural aspects of the burakumin class. That’s because the author was a buraku himself.
A very long time burakumin lived as outcasts in separate villages. Although their position officially has improved, nowadays still people are looking down upon those people.
The novel was first published in 1976; the same year it won the prestigious Akutagama prize. JM
April 28, 2025
La fin 🫥 Pourquoi les auteurs japonais ont un rapport ultra bizarre avec le sexe 😭
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews