Laughing Wolf
By Tsushima Yuko
Translated from the Japanese by Dennis Washburn

Iv + 240 pp., Copyright 2011
ISBN 978-1-929280-69-8. Paper only. $20.00
Michigan Monograph Series in Japanese Studies, Number 73
Publication Date: 9/22/11

Published by the Center for Japanese Studies, The University of Michigan

See our website at https://www.cjspubs.lsa.umich.edu/books/list/mono73.php to order

LAUGHING WOLF, which won the 2001 Osaragi Jiro Prize and was selected by the Japanese Literature Publishing Project (JLPP), an initiative of the Agency of Cultural Affairs of Japan, is set in the immediate years of postwar Japan. We follow the exploits of two children as they traverse the country by train.

Through the children we experience the horrors of postwar Japan. Interspersed throughout are newspaper clippings of serial killers, packs of wild dogs attacking and killing humans, and boats sinking with hundreds of passengers aboard after running into mines never retrieved from the water. It makes for compelling reading on what war-torn Japan was like, and it could be used in history classes as well as literature classes.

Excerpt from LAUGHING WOLF

     “Suddenly and unexpectedly I felt a wave of anxiety and wanted to run back out to the platform. But it was too late. What would happen to us, I wondered. The person next to me wasn’t my mother. It was Mitsuo. Just who was he? I felt lonely, and tears filled my eyes and nose. To hide my face from him I drew my knees up to my forehead and closed my eyes.
“Mitsuo murmured in my ear, ‘By the way, you’ve gone to all this trouble to become a boy, Yuki-chan. So let’s think of a name to call you. How about Mowgli? That’s perfect for a brand new boy. You know him, right? The human child in THE JUNGLE BOOK? While we’re at it, I’ll change my name to Akela. I’ve wanted to be called that for a long time. Pretty cool, huh?’”

Tsushima Yuko is the pen name of Tsushima Satoko, an acclaimed contemporary Japanese fiction writer, essayist, and critic. Her accolades include: the Noma Prize for New Writers in 1979, the Kawabata Prize in 1983 for her short story “Danmari ichi” (The Silent Traders), the Tanizaki and Noma Prizes in 1998 for her novel HI NO YAMA—YAMAZARUKI (Mountain of Fire: Account of a Wild Monkey), and the Osaragi Jiro Prize in 2001 for this novel.

Dennis Washburn is the Jane and Raphael Bernstein Professor in Asian Studies at Dartmouth College. Among his numerous works, the Center for Japanese Studies at the University of Michigan has also published STUDIES IN MODERN JAPANESE LITERATURE: ESSAYS AND TRANSLATIONS IN HONOR OF EDWIN MCCLELLAN (edited with Alan Tansman, 1997), THE SHADE OF BLOSSOMS by Ooka Shohei (translator, 1998), SHANGHAI by Yokomitsu Riichi (translator, 2001), and A WIFE IN MUSASHINO by Ooka Shohei (translator, 2004).