The thorn puller
Hiromi Itō (Author), Jeffrey Angles (Translator)
The first novel to appear in English by award-winning author Hiromi Ito explores the absurdities, complexities, and challenges experienced by a woman caring for her two families: her husband and daughters in California and her aging parents in Japan. As the narrator shuttles back and forth between these two starkly different cultures, she creates a powerful and entertaining narrative about what it means to live and die in a globalized society
Print Book, English, 2022
Stone Bridge Press, Berkeley, California, 2022
Domestic fiction
299 pages ; 21 cm
9781737625308, 9781737625322, 173762530X, 1737625326
1334088225
Ito returns to Japan and finds herself in a real pinch
Mother leads Ito from Iwanosaka toward Sugamo
Ito crosses the ocean and the slope of the underworld, throwing peaches
The peach Ito threw rots, and she becomes a beast once again
Evil flourishes, but Ito encounters Jizo in broad daylight
Ito goes on a journey, making a pilgrimage to Yuda Hot Springs
With tongue intact, Sparrow chases the old woman away
The rainy season continues, and Mother suffers on her deathbed
Ito travels west, blooms, and then wilts away
Fishing with cormorants, Ito hears of the merits of coming and going
Oh, ears! Listen to the sound of sadness trickling in the urinal
Smoke rises from Urashima on a clear autumn day
A lump is removed, Ito meets a demon and the sparrow-dog devotees
Ito again finds herself in a real pinch and dashes through darkness for her child
Driven by despair, the female followers of the thorn puller attack Ito's husband
Good and bad ways of dying, a poet stares death in the face
Ito grows ill, a bird transforms into a blossom, and the giant trees stay unchanged
Translation of: "Togenuki : Shin Sugamo jizō engi"
In English, translated from Japanese