What do you think?
Rate this book
The River with No Bridge
Not yet published
Expected 31 Dec 30Written during the 1960s, this courageous work explores the intolerance and bigotry faced daily by Japan's largest minority group, the Burakumin.
376 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1961
5 people are currently reading
169 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
April 28, 2015
My friend, young Glaswegian in rural Japan, was teaching English as a foreign language every Tuesday evening to a small group of adults. Scrabbling around for a topic to discuss in English, he settled on the experience of burakumin. At the start of the class, he wrote the word across the blackboard and ... there was shock, there was horror, there was one old woman getting up to erase it. All of the students refused to discuss burakumin.
When he told the story to the other foreigners, we all rolled our eyes at another example of Japanese people finding an issue to avoid being frank about. But then a chap from Florida piped up "But if it was the South of the States, and a naive young Japanese guy opened his adult education class by writing the N word across the blackboard ..." Well, he had a point.
Back to "The River with No Bridge" ... I thought it was going to be Japan's To Kill a Mockingbird but it's a bit too plodding and unlovely, really.
When he told the story to the other foreigners, we all rolled our eyes at another example of Japanese people finding an issue to avoid being frank about. But then a chap from Florida piped up "But if it was the South of the States, and a naive young Japanese guy opened his adult education class by writing the N word across the blackboard ..." Well, he had a point.
Back to "The River with No Bridge" ... I thought it was going to be Japan's To Kill a Mockingbird but it's a bit too plodding and unlovely, really.
April 23, 2022
I never would have known about River were it not for my Goodreads friend DJ who read it recently. I decided to read it because he gave it a 5 star rating, it is readily available via the Internet Archive, and I have a burgeoning interest in the Eta community of Japan.
Written in a spare but at times still evocative prose, Sumii merits praise on at least three counts. First, she developed a thorough and nuanced depiction of this rural community in the early 20th century. Although the government declared their equality in 1871, the reality of their lives is much different than that. Over the course of the novel one can learn much about the prejudice, if not at times open scorn and hatred, they had to cope with. The children are treated badly by many of their peers as well as most of their teachers in school. The adults are only allowed to work in certain kinds of employment.
Second, the author provided a great deal of social commentary about life in Japan at that time. Institutional social and economic inequality, arbitrary government policies, the demands for complete loyalty and obedience to the Emperor along with other aspects of Japanese society of that era are all critiqued in the context of actual historical events.
Finally, the portrayal of the lives of one family is wonderfully well done. As the novel progresses the main character an elementary school aged boy named Koji and his older brother Seitaro along with their Mother and Grandmother are depicted with great insight and, at times, poignancy. Friends of the boys, their teachers, and a few extended family members are also nicely developed.
In providing a smattering of Japanese language vocabulary throughout the novel the translator heightened the sense of authenticity for the reader. Each of these were demarcated with an asterisk and then explained in 5 pages of notes at the end of the book. In this way, the reader is afforded an opportunity to learn about Japanese customs, food, etc.
I have two modest critiques of River. First, those readers who are not familiar with the country’s history may find some of the references hard to follow. Second, some of the social commentary gets to be a bit redundant, if not heavy handed, on occasion.
Overall, however, it was an informative and engaging read. Per the translator's introduction this is the first of 6 volumes which Sumii published about this family and their community. I hope another volume or two will be translated.
Addendum: Tuttle publishing informed me that it has no intention to publish another English language translation of these novels. How unfortunate!
Written in a spare but at times still evocative prose, Sumii merits praise on at least three counts. First, she developed a thorough and nuanced depiction of this rural community in the early 20th century. Although the government declared their equality in 1871, the reality of their lives is much different than that. Over the course of the novel one can learn much about the prejudice, if not at times open scorn and hatred, they had to cope with. The children are treated badly by many of their peers as well as most of their teachers in school. The adults are only allowed to work in certain kinds of employment.
Second, the author provided a great deal of social commentary about life in Japan at that time. Institutional social and economic inequality, arbitrary government policies, the demands for complete loyalty and obedience to the Emperor along with other aspects of Japanese society of that era are all critiqued in the context of actual historical events.
Finally, the portrayal of the lives of one family is wonderfully well done. As the novel progresses the main character an elementary school aged boy named Koji and his older brother Seitaro along with their Mother and Grandmother are depicted with great insight and, at times, poignancy. Friends of the boys, their teachers, and a few extended family members are also nicely developed.
In providing a smattering of Japanese language vocabulary throughout the novel the translator heightened the sense of authenticity for the reader. Each of these were demarcated with an asterisk and then explained in 5 pages of notes at the end of the book. In this way, the reader is afforded an opportunity to learn about Japanese customs, food, etc.
I have two modest critiques of River. First, those readers who are not familiar with the country’s history may find some of the references hard to follow. Second, some of the social commentary gets to be a bit redundant, if not heavy handed, on occasion.
Overall, however, it was an informative and engaging read. Per the translator's introduction this is the first of 6 volumes which Sumii published about this family and their community. I hope another volume or two will be translated.
Addendum: Tuttle publishing informed me that it has no intention to publish another English language translation of these novels. How unfortunate!
November 14, 2021
I understand how some readers might find this novel heavy-handed in places, but I think it's almost inevitable given the subject matter and themes. I found the story of the eta community in early 20th-century Japan riveting, and the portrayals of the children, especially (but not limited to) Seitaro and Koji, as authentic as portrayals of children in literature anywhere. I loved this book and hope to read Sumii's subsequent five volumes one day.
April 3, 2019
A bit heavy on emphasizing the mistreatment of the eta (it read a bit like a moral lesson), but still very compelling. I loved Seitaro and Koji, and their grandmother!
September 8, 2025
'Koji had been quick to sense that what he experienced was unjust discrimination, disguised as the unalterable law of karma-although karma was still a word and a concept unfamiliar to him.'
I recently chanced upon this book from a rather antiquated second hand book shop, having no prior knowledge of its existence. Only later did I learn that The River with No Bridge is only circulated in Japan, only having one out of seven volumes translated. This only further added to my intrigue; as if I am getting a glimpse into something forbidden, sensitive in Japanese society.
The children of Komori are born into the lowest class in Japan, given the title of the Burakumin, usually referred to as -eta. They were typically butchers, shoe/glue makers,gravediggers and farmers. These works were usually associated with death and filth often causing the Burakumin to exhibit a strong odour. As such, they were often treated as inherently ‘Dirty’ and are considered less than human.
'Snakes. He hated them as well. He only had to hear them rustling through the grass to shudder. They were loathsome, frightening creatures and the sight of them made his flesh creep. What a curious creature it was. And to think that Mr Aojima detested him in the same way, found him equally frightening and loathsome; to think that for him there was no creature in the world so curious as the -eta.’
This serves as the main driving force of the story for our heroes Koji and Seitaro, who have to navigate the world amidst such oppression and hatred. Beginning in 1908, we see the world through the lens of our innocent and naive protagonists. Bullied and ostracized by their peers, beaten into submission by their teachers, the first thing they were taught of was their apparent worthlessness and impureness in the society. Forced to obey hierarchies and worship the Emperor as divine beings, Koji and Seitaro start to question these teachings and the hypocrisies of the world, growing increasingly disaffected and alienated with their lives. ‘I don't care how hard it is, I’d rather be a soldier than be called names like eta and Four-Fingers, even if they make me crawl forward under heavy fire in a battle.' As both children desperately try to outrun their fate as the -eta, they are soon suffocated by the walls built around them, unable to escape from this cursed fate.
At its core, The River with No Bridge is a powerful depiction of discrimination, systematic poverty and violence, while also being a testament to human resilience, perseverance and hope for the future represented in its young naive characters of Koji and Seitaro. The unflinching portrayal of hatred and disgust towards Burakumin is often juxtaposed with the love and familiar bonds they adopted to survive, creating a complete narrative that echoes the struggles of minorities everywhere. Spare yet intimate, Sue Sumii resists indulgence in the emotions of her characters, preferring to draw out their feelings through the unfolding plot and through pockets of self reflection.
'Koji also gazed silently at it, and gradually he began to fancy that the white fragment on the gray riverbed knew his brother’s feelings better than anyone else and would understand his own as well.They were too contradictory for teachers or friends to comprehend—the joyful-sad feeling, happy-empty; the way everything seemed somehow cruel.’
The River with No Bridge is not merely a novel to be read, tossed aside. It is real, it demands urgency and it calls for immediate action. Lending her literary strength to the Burakumin, she exposes the absurdities of this social structure and prejudices, bringing to fore the unending cycle of poverty weaved through her intricately written narrative. Sue Sumii strives to humanise the Burakamin, showing that they in fact have feelings. They cry, they love, they hate, they work hard, they are all human, as much as those who spurn them. In doing so, The River with No Bridge is a landmark in protest literature, advancing Burakumin rights, urging for reform and influencing a change in the public consciousness to their treatment.
Koji’s mother dreams of a river with no bridge, where she is forever separated by this river from her late husband(who died in WW1). The Burakumin too are stranded from the rest of society, languishing behind invisible systematic barriers. Unless the bridge is built, these marginalised identities will forever be doomed to exile as 'untouchables'.
In the words of Sue Sumii,
‘No one is born more than a human being.
And no one is born less than a human being.’
I recently chanced upon this book from a rather antiquated second hand book shop, having no prior knowledge of its existence. Only later did I learn that The River with No Bridge is only circulated in Japan, only having one out of seven volumes translated. This only further added to my intrigue; as if I am getting a glimpse into something forbidden, sensitive in Japanese society.
The children of Komori are born into the lowest class in Japan, given the title of the Burakumin, usually referred to as -eta. They were typically butchers, shoe/glue makers,gravediggers and farmers. These works were usually associated with death and filth often causing the Burakumin to exhibit a strong odour. As such, they were often treated as inherently ‘Dirty’ and are considered less than human.
'Snakes. He hated them as well. He only had to hear them rustling through the grass to shudder. They were loathsome, frightening creatures and the sight of them made his flesh creep. What a curious creature it was. And to think that Mr Aojima detested him in the same way, found him equally frightening and loathsome; to think that for him there was no creature in the world so curious as the -eta.’
This serves as the main driving force of the story for our heroes Koji and Seitaro, who have to navigate the world amidst such oppression and hatred. Beginning in 1908, we see the world through the lens of our innocent and naive protagonists. Bullied and ostracized by their peers, beaten into submission by their teachers, the first thing they were taught of was their apparent worthlessness and impureness in the society. Forced to obey hierarchies and worship the Emperor as divine beings, Koji and Seitaro start to question these teachings and the hypocrisies of the world, growing increasingly disaffected and alienated with their lives. ‘I don't care how hard it is, I’d rather be a soldier than be called names like eta and Four-Fingers, even if they make me crawl forward under heavy fire in a battle.' As both children desperately try to outrun their fate as the -eta, they are soon suffocated by the walls built around them, unable to escape from this cursed fate.
At its core, The River with No Bridge is a powerful depiction of discrimination, systematic poverty and violence, while also being a testament to human resilience, perseverance and hope for the future represented in its young naive characters of Koji and Seitaro. The unflinching portrayal of hatred and disgust towards Burakumin is often juxtaposed with the love and familiar bonds they adopted to survive, creating a complete narrative that echoes the struggles of minorities everywhere. Spare yet intimate, Sue Sumii resists indulgence in the emotions of her characters, preferring to draw out their feelings through the unfolding plot and through pockets of self reflection.
'Koji also gazed silently at it, and gradually he began to fancy that the white fragment on the gray riverbed knew his brother’s feelings better than anyone else and would understand his own as well.They were too contradictory for teachers or friends to comprehend—the joyful-sad feeling, happy-empty; the way everything seemed somehow cruel.’
The River with No Bridge is not merely a novel to be read, tossed aside. It is real, it demands urgency and it calls for immediate action. Lending her literary strength to the Burakumin, she exposes the absurdities of this social structure and prejudices, bringing to fore the unending cycle of poverty weaved through her intricately written narrative. Sue Sumii strives to humanise the Burakamin, showing that they in fact have feelings. They cry, they love, they hate, they work hard, they are all human, as much as those who spurn them. In doing so, The River with No Bridge is a landmark in protest literature, advancing Burakumin rights, urging for reform and influencing a change in the public consciousness to their treatment.
Koji’s mother dreams of a river with no bridge, where she is forever separated by this river from her late husband(who died in WW1). The Burakumin too are stranded from the rest of society, languishing behind invisible systematic barriers. Unless the bridge is built, these marginalised identities will forever be doomed to exile as 'untouchables'.
In the words of Sue Sumii,
‘No one is born more than a human being.
And no one is born less than a human being.’
March 9, 2025
Koji Hatanaka has just started school. He has many friends in Komori, his village, and he even wins the governor’s prize as the top student of his class. Still, his future is less than bright because all the people from Komori are eta or burakumin, outcasts from Japan’s strict class hierarchy for generations. Once Koji understands what that means, he is determined to prove all of those wrong who call him dirty and a good for nothing. But this may mean to leave Komori behind, like his older brother did, and even in the big cities, escape from his background is not certain.
The book is set in the early 20th century, when discrimination against the burakumin was officially outlawed after centuries. However, old habits die hard, especially in the countryside. We follow Koji through his time at primary school as he becomes more and more aware of the daily injustices he and his fellow villagers have to endure. It is heartbreaking to read about his struggles, even more so when you realize that the story is all too close to reality.
The book is set in the early 20th century, when discrimination against the burakumin was officially outlawed after centuries. However, old habits die hard, especially in the countryside. We follow Koji through his time at primary school as he becomes more and more aware of the daily injustices he and his fellow villagers have to endure. It is heartbreaking to read about his struggles, even more so when you realize that the story is all too close to reality.
abandoned
April 5, 2023Il tema de "Il fiume senza ponti" è sicuramente interessante e degno di essere raccontato, ma la narrazione, fintanto che ho proseguito nella lettura (p. 142), l'ho trovata noiosa, lenta e troppo volta a presentare scene che mostrano le vessazioni a cui gli eta erano soggetti, tanto che mi sembra si manifesti, in questa "affettazione", la "costruzione" della storia... non so come dire... Leggendo il testo, si può osservare senza molto sforzo il 'ragionamento' dell'autrice nel costruire la storia. Questa, per lo meno, è stata la mia impressione. Un vero peccato...
May 29, 2020
Un affresco interessante della realtà degli "eta", gli intoccabili del Giappone, all'inizio del '900 visto attraverso gli occhi di un bambino. Non ci vengono risparmiati momenti tragici e alcuni passaggi hanno una grandissima forza. Peccato per la lentezza della narrazione, che rende la lettura un po' difficile.
November 8, 2017
Read this in Japanese. It is only the first of seven in the story.
April 22, 2023
A very important and necessary novel that tells the story of the problem I am writing my thesis about. I look forward to the Polish translation (who knows, maybe by me)
私が修士論文を���いている問題を語る、とても重要で必要な小説です。ポーランド語の翻訳を楽しみにしています（もしかしたら、私が翻訳するかもしれません）。
私が修士論文を���いている問題を語る、とても重要で必要な小説です。ポーランド語の翻訳を楽しみにしています（もしかしたら、私が翻訳するかもしれません）。
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews