Shipwrecks

It doesn't mean that Akira Yoshimura's novels are popular in the USA, but I've heard that his 'Shipwrecks' and 'On Parole' are relatively known there.

The author doesn't mention the time and setting of 'Shipwrecks', but I guess this story took place in a small, poor fishing village during the Edo era(17th-19th century) in northern Japan, probably Tohoku district.

The village is isolated. The villagers have to go over the mountains, taking two days to go to neighboring villages. The small cultivated land is full of stones and they can only gather in a little millet. The women and children pick seaweed and gather shellfish from the reef. The men fish saury, sardines and octopus in small boats. To avoid starvation, they have to sell their daughters and wives, even heads of households into bondage.

Isaku, a nine-year-old boy, takes over as head household to live with his mother, younger brother and sister after his father sold himself for three years into indentured servitude. He comes to learn fishing and making salt with large cauldrons, and even the hidden purpose of the fire used for salt-making in winter.

Their only hope is O-fune-sama or "Ship god" that comes every few years. So during stormy winter nights, the villagers make salt with cauldrons and fire to lure wrecking ships onto the reef. The O-fune-sama brings down fortune, rice, wine, furniture and wood for them. All sailors are thrown into the rough sea.

However, the O-fune-sama brings down a catastrophic disaster to the village as well.

This is the tragic story that depicts the miserable life of poverty-stricken people through Isaku's eyes. The poverty transforms even crimes into blessing beyond the moral.

In the last part, Isaku sees his father in the distance coming home being given his freedom from  bondage. But what could his father do for this poor family?

Akira Yoshimura wrote a heavy theme with simple sentences, but this book is easy to read for English learners. The original version "Hasen" is written in Japanese.