Status Updates From La pandilla de Asakusa

“—I am a daughter of the earthquake. In the middle of the earthquake, I was reborn. It’s like I told you at the Aquarium. I’m going to become a man. I’m never going to be a woman. When hundreds of people sleep, lying together on concrete, legs touching, without anything to cover up their bodies—then a girl starts to hate becoming a woman.”

“But there is one young girl selling her balls better because of her beauty. A red ribbon droops from her bobbed head, and beneath her short open skirt, her legs (stockings rolled) dance the Charleston—cha cha, cha cha—while through her dark encarmined lips she whistles jazzily along. She keeps time, bouncing that ball like a tambourine or like castanets.”

Tradycyjnie, sama historia mnie nie porywa, ale Kawabata jest jedyny w swoim rodzaju ✨ uwielbiam czytać wszystko spod jego ręki