Fragments of a Past: A Memoir

by Eiji Yoshikawa, Edwin McClellan (Translator)

Recounts the first twenty years in the life of the renowned Japanese author of Musashi and Taiko, including his birth in the city of Yokohama, his psychologically absorbing struggle toward maturity, and more.

Genres: Japan, Nonfiction

278 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1993

About the author

Pen-name of Yoshikawa Hidetsugu. Yoshikawa is well-known for his work as a Japanese historical fiction novelist, and a number of re-makes have been spawned off his work.

In 1960, he received the Order of Cultural Merit.
Eiji Yoshikawa (吉川 英治, August 11, 1892 – September 7, 1962) was a Japanese historical novelist. Among his best-known novels, most are revisions of older classics. He was mainly influenced by classics such as The Tale of the Heike, Tale of Genji, Outlaws of the Marsh, and Romance of the Three Kingdoms, many of which he retold in his own style. As an example, the original manuscript of Taiko is 15 volumes; Yoshikawa took up to retell it in a more accessible tone, and reduced it to only two volumes. His other books also serve similar purposes and, although most of his novels are not original works, he created a huge amount of work and a renewed interest in the past. He was awarded the Cultural Order of Merit in 1960 (the highest award for a man of letters in Japan), the Order of the Sacred Treasure and the Mainichi Art Award just before his death from cancer in 1962. He is cited as one of the best historical novelists in Japan.

Reviews

[Felice · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure how this book came onto my shelf--I like Japanese fiction, from Soseki on, but I'd never read any of this author's immensely popular Historical novels. Something about his looks attracted me; he seemed so everyday compared to the formality of the history he wrote about. And then the title--Fragments of a Past--which he explain in a preface is only about his life until he reached the age of 21. It's a marvelous story, and more so because its about a kind of life we would find it difficult to believe never mind live. Although he was born in Yokohama in 1892 and lived through the later Meiji era and then through the 20th Century to 1962, Yoshikawa's childhood was medieval, feudal, and probably no different form many people in the third world today. And in that way it is enlightening and terrifying. The life of the author's mother, in particular, is difficult to read. She was totally subsumed by her husband, the author's father, who was a monster of ego, incompetence, alcoholism and tyranny. Their daughters were sold into working bondage; one died and Yoshikawa managed to buy back the second one and get her home. His own working life from an early age is dealt with in great details; the dirty, bad, and then dangerous work he had to do for so little money, reflect one by one the expansion of the Industrial Revolution in Japan, and then is slow globalization. But he doesn't want your compassion. He's not unhappy about the hardships at all. And at the end he even writes, "Until we ourselves have reached the end of the road, we cannot know which was yields the most of the fullness and joy of living."