Tarnished Words: The Poetry of Oba Minako

Literature & Fiction

Oba, Minako

History & Criticism

Eastbridge Books

Of  Birds Crying (Naku tori no, 1985), the recipient of the Noma Bungei Prize, is loosely based on the author’s own life, recounting six months in the lives of Yurie Mama, a well-established middle-aged novelist married to Shōzō, a scientist. In this deeply psychological novel, a tapestry of extraordinary moments expands and interconnects via interior monologues and dialogues ranging from the humorous and farcical to the somber and meditative. Acutely perceptive social and cross-cultural commentaries fill the narrator’s voice and the characters’ conversations. Long-forgotten incidents come back to life, triggered by the sight of an ancient tree, the name of a flower, or the crying of a bird, and memories spawn tales within tales. Despite the fact that the characters’ motives for their actions defy prediction, these seemingly disparate elements are woven into a coherent whole, a reflection of the interdependency of humanity and nature in its wholeness that is one of the many underlying threads of the story.

Minako Oba: Of Birds Crying (Cornell East Asia Series) (New Japanese Horizons)

Literary

Cornell East Asia Series

<p>Of Birds Crying (Naku tori no, 1985), the recipient of the Noma Bungei Prize, is loosely based on the author's own life, recounting six months in the lives of Yurie Mama, a well-established middle-aged novelist married to a scientist. In this deeply psychological novel, a tapestry of extraordinary moments expands and interconnects via interior monologues and dialogues ranging from the humorous and farcical to the somber and meditative. Acutely perceptive social and cross-cultural commentaries fill the narrator's voice and the characters' conversations. Long-forgotten incidents come back to life, triggered by the sight of an ancient tree, the name of a flower, or the crying of a bird, and memories spawn tales within tales. Despite the fact that the characters' motives for their actions defy prediction, these seemingly disparate elements are woven into a coherent whole, a reflection of the interdependency of humanity and nature in its wholeness that is one of the many underlying threads of the story.</p>

Of Birds Crying: A Novel (New Japanese Horizons)

<p>Japan’s five-thousand yen banknote will have a new face as of 2024, and that face is Tsuda Umeko (1864–1929), who devoted her life to the education of Japanese women. Umeko founded one of Japan’s first schools of higher education for women—a school that later became Tsuda College. Half a century after her death, an old trunk in the college attic was found to contain hundreds of personal letters written by Umeko to her foster mother in America, Adeline Lanman.\nUmeko had been sent to America as a young child to learn English and the ways of Western civilization. She returned to Japan at eighteen, completely Americanized and a stranger in her own country. The “attic letters” are a fascinating chronicle of her repatriation to late-19th century Japan, and of her encounters with iconic figures such as Japan’s first prime minister Itō Hirobumi.\nThis book shows how the passionate young girl metamorphosed into one of Japan’s foremost educators, by following the thoughts of Umeko herself as she recorded them in her letters. The story is told by Ōba Minako, a writer who graduated from Tsuda College and was herself a returnee to Japan after a decade in the United States.\n"Tsuda Umeko" was awarded the 42nd Yomiuri Prize for Literature (1990).</p>

Reflections on Tsuda Umeko- Pioneer of Women's Education in Japan

Japan Library

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Books by Oba, Minako