The Budding Tree: Six Stories of Love in Edo

This Naoki Prizewinning work is a personal yet precise account of the lives of working women in the Edo period (16001868).

In the latter half of the Edo period, the warrior caste was finding itself pushed out of the top echelons of society by the rising merchant class, and repeated famines swept the countryside. Against this backdrop, a small number of women vigorously built themselves independent lives with unusual careers--working as designers of ornamental hairpins, or even scribes--in the male-dominated society of the day. The stories in The Budding Tree recount the conditions in which these women lived.

"Japanese author Kitahara depicts in these six tales the plight of single women struggling for success in early-to-mid-19th-century Japan. These young women protagonists are gifted artists or fledgling entrepreneurs who have lost the protection of men, either by the death of fathers or divorce from husbands, and dare to make a name on their own, often with dire consequences. In the title story, owner Okaji is struggling to keep her new restaurant, Moegi ('the budding tree'), afloat despite a famine and competition from her ex-husbands more established restaurant. In 'Loves Chill Wind,' a schoolteacher resolves to maintain a school her deceased father founded. Moreover, these proto-feminists have to fend off pesky matchmakers and importunate advances by hardly well-meaning suitors, such as the married man in 'Innocent in Love,' who seduces out of spite his childhood friend, now a successful designer of ornamental hairpins. Kitahara also elegantly portrays the dilemma of the young Oichi in 'Forget-Me-Not,' who must make a painful compromise in love for the sake of her art. The timeless conflicts of Kitaharas characters will resonate with todays readers."Publishers Weekly

Aiko Kitahara was born in Tokyo's Shimbashi district. After graduating from Chiba Prefectural Girls' High School she joined an advertising firm, beginning her creative work on the side. She won the Shincho Prize for New Writers for her debut work, the 1969 Mama wa shiranakatta yo (Mom Didn't Know).

She has gained a widespread following for her sentimental touch and her status as a woman writer creating detailed images of the everyday lives of Edo-period Japanese. Many of her works have been adapted for television.

Aiko Kitahara was born in Tokyo's Shimbashi district. After graduating from Chiba Prefectural Girls' High School she joined an advertising firm, beginning her creative work on the side. She won the Shincho Prize for New Writers for her debut work, the 1969 Mama wa shiranakatta yo (Mom Didn't Know).

She has gained a widespread following for her sentimental touch and her status as a woman writer creating detailed images of the everyday lives of Edo-period Japanese. Many of her works have been adapted for television.

9781564785114 Micheline Aharon

Aiko Kitahara (1938-) began to write fiction while working as a copywriter. She emerged on the literary scene in 1969 when her novella Kona yuki mau (Powder Snow Flies) was runner-up for the Shosetsu Gendai Prize for New Writers and her novel-length Mama wa shiranakattanoyo (Mama Didn't Know) was awarded the first Shincho Prize for New Writers. For the next two decades she continued to publish short stories in popular fiction magazines, finally publishing her first volume in book form, the historical novel Kasuga no Tsubone (Lady Kasuga), in 1988. She was awarded the Izumi Kyoka Prize in 1989 for Fukagawa Miodori kidobangoya (Fukagawa Mio Street Gatehouse) and won the Naoki Prize in 1993 for Koiwasuregusa (Forget-Me-Not; translated and published in English under the title The Budding Tree), a series of six linked short stories. In 2005 Yo no akeru made (Until Dawn), the fourth volume of the Fukagawa Miodori kidobangoya series, received the Yoshikawa Eiji Prize for Literature. Keijiro engawa nikki (Keijiro's Diary, 1998-), a series about an Edo-period detective, is immensely popular; now at volume 13, it has been turned into a TV series.