The Sumida River

by Nagai Kafū · 1909

Rogetsu, a failed haikai master, watches his nephew Chokichi pine for Oito, a childhood sweetheart now training as a geisha, while the boy's mother pushes him toward a respectable business life. Chokichi drifts through the back streets of Asakusa and the Sumida riverside until a flood and a fever bring the story to a hospital door.

Books mentioned in The Sumida River (1)

• Shunshoku Umegoyomi by Tamenaga Shunsui: “Chokichi read the name of a street on a neighbor's nameplate, and at once recalled Tamenaga Shunsui's Shunshoku Umegoyomi, which he had devoured lately. [auto-translated]”