Tales from a Mountain Cave: Stories from Japan's Northeast

A young man, dissatisfied with life at university in Tokyo, finds a job in a mountain tuberculosis sanatorium in Iwate Prefecture. One lunch-time he hears a trumpet from across the valley and, enjoying the music, seeks to find its source. He finds a cave from which appears the head of the trumpeter, an old man, who invites him inside. The young man takes to visiting the cave every lunch-time to listen to the old man’s stories of his life in the region. Spanning the 1920s to the 1950s, the stories – many humorous, some sad – draw on traditional folklore and give impelling insights into the lives of people of the district before and during the Second World War. Features the short story ‘House up the River’, recipient of the British Comparative Literature Association John Dryden Translation  Competition 2013 Commendation.