قصة الكتاب :
Asahi Shimbun Shuppan (Asahi Bunko), 2002. 224 pp. ¥480. ISBN
978-4-02-264301-8.
Medoruma Shun
Born in Okinawa Prefecture in 1960. Received the New Okinawa
Literature Prize in 1986 for “Heiwa-dōri to nazukerareta machi
o aruite” [Walking the Street Named Peace Boulevard], the Akutagawa
Prize in 1997 for “Suiteki,” and the Kawabata Yasunari Prize
for Literature and the Kiyama Shōhei Literary Award in 2000 for
“Mabuigumi.” In addition to fiction, he has published essays and criticism
in newspapers and magazines.

This is the first collection of short stories by this Okinawan author, who won the
Akutagawa Prize in 1997 for “Suiteki” [Droplets]. The author Hino Keizō, who
was on the selection committee for that prize, raved about Mabuigumi: “Not only
does it draw from the rich natural environment of the southern islands and the
myths and oral traditions that remain there, it also creatively experiments with
how to organically combine those raw materials of fiction with the reality of
modern-day Okinawa—including its wounds from the war—and how to create
a coherent fictional world from them.”
The main character of the title story is Uta, a female shaman who offers prayers
called ugan in Okinawan. One night, while playing the sanshin (an Okinawan
version of the Japanese shamisen) and singing alone on the beach, a man loses
consciousness, as if a sea turtle had stolen his mabui (spirit). Uta prays for days on
end, trying to reclaim his mabui and put it back in him, but the man does not
revive. The man’s mother died when digging up sea turtle eggs for food during the
war. Had the man gone back to the ocean like baby sea turtles?
In all of Medoruma’s works, the worlds of reality and fantasy, modernity and
myth, are contiguous. Particularly unforgettable is the story “Umukaji tō chiritei”
[Followed by Shadows], included in this collection, which depicts a world so sad
and sublime that the spirits of the characters stay with you for days after reading
it. A girl who has suffered countless horrible experiences from early childhood
finds that she has become able to see the spirits of the dead. Once she joins them,
her shade sits on the branch of a banyan tree and speaks to the living. That is how
vital and pressing the human desire to pass on one’s own story really is.
To turn the reality of Okinawa into literature is not a straightforward process,
but Medoruma continues to devote himself to writing, sharpening and attuning
his bodily senses to the southern islands. (OM)