“Lament in the Night is a heartrending gift from the past… Little Tokyo in the 1920s—its bars, gambling, and social exchanges in an era of Prohibition—comes vividly to life in these stories, revealing the real and psychic underbelly of daily lives that have been erased and forgotten.
Andrew Leong’s patient and careful translation makes a lost world known to us again.”
— Karen Tei Yamashita, author of I-Hotel and Sansei and Sensibility

Join the Club, Buy the Book

Happy new year! The J-Sei Virtual Book Club continues in 2021 with another discussion-worthy selection. Book Club Format: We’ll follow a suggested reading schedule, although of course you are welcome to read at whatever pace works best for you. On the secure J-Sei Book Club webpage we’ll have weekly postings and encourage you to contribute your own thoughts about the reading. Also scheduled will be online guest appearances and a live Zoom meeting so we can get together to discuss the book. Sign up for the Book Club and be added to the Book Club mailing list.

J-Sei Book Club Pick: Lament in the Night by Nagahara Shoson

Our latest book actually consists of two novellas, originally published in 1925, presented together in one volume. The first, titled “Lament in the Night,” follows a migrant worker who wanders the streets of an unnamed city in search of food, work, and self-worth. The second and longer novella, “The Tale of Osato,” portrays a young woman struggling to survive a series of hardships after marrying and moving to California. Both works are remarkable in showing the seamy, hardscrabble life of Japanese immigrants in early 20th-century America. Nagahara’s works languished in obscurity until uncovered by scholar Andrew Way Leong, who translated them from their original Japanese into English while working on his Ph.D. The resulting translation was published by Kaya Press in 2012 and includes notes, background, and supplemental information as well as illuminating historical photographs.

Join J-Sei’s Book Club and connect with fellow book lovers as we explore this major achievement in Japanese American literature.

Nagahara Shōson was the pen name of Nagahara Hideaki, who was born in 1901 in a small village in the northeastern corner of Hiroshima Prefecture. In 1918, he emigrated to the United States at age 17. In 1920, Nagahara resided in a boarding house in Los Angeles and listed his occupation as “railroad worker,” but he also published several novels, stories, and plays in the Los Angeles area, though not all his works have survived. Nagahara may have returned to Japan in late 1927 or early 1928. The date and location of his death are currently unknown.

Andrew Way Leong is Assistant Professor of English at U.C. Berkeley, where he received his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature. Prior to joining the Berkeley faculty, Prof. Leong was an assistant professor at Northwestern University. In addition to translating Lament in the Night, which won the 2014 Outstanding Book Award—Creative Writing, Assoc. of Asian American Studies, he is presently completing a book manuscript entitled A Queer, Queer Race: Origins for Japanese/American Literature.

Photo: Yanina Gotsulsky