Japanese American Stories of New York

[A Modern Decameron] Modan Dekameron

Tani, Joji [pseudonym of Hasegawa Kaitaro]

Publication: Tokyo: Kaizosha, 1929 (Showa 4). First Edition.

Notes: A sequel to Tekisasu mushuku ta sanjuichi pen [Hoboing in Texas and Thirty-one Other Stories] modeled after The Decameron.

Hasegawa "spins stories about people’s lives in an urban space, although the time and place are no longer the medieval Rome of the Decameron but twentieth-century New York. The main characters are ’Merican-Japs ["meriken jappu"] whose background and reasons for immigration and migration vary, but what is common to them is that they live in a poor, dark neighborhood in Manhattan. Living like hobos, they work as gamblers, acrobats, bootleggers, owners of illegal bars, poets, or assistants to tipsters."—Kyoko Omori, Detecting Japanese Vernacular Modernism, p. 239.

These stories are set amongst the immigrants of Third Avenue in New York: "It may be said they happily established a country – a country that exists even if it does not appear on a map of the world... A Bulgarian marries a Turk and has an American baby girl. The American baby girl grows up and falls in love with a Chinese, and they have a family. An Armenian lodges at their house. This Armenian works at a store owned by Jews, dines at a Greek restaurant where he listens to Jazz played by Hawaiian musicians. He has Spanish polish on his shoes, says hello to an Irish policeman, buys meat at a German butcher and bread from a French bakery" (translation by Otori from Modan Dekameron, p. 240).

Hasegawa's father was an English teacher and journalist, and Hasegawa attended good Japanese schools. In 1920, his parents sent him to Oberlin College for an American education. He attended class for a few months before dropping out and traveling around the country working odd jobs for four years. This experience is the basis of his meriken jappu stories. He returned to Japan in 1924, hitching a ride on a tramp steamer and working for his passage. He intended to go back to the United States but was denied a visa. Instead, he began writing for Japanese detective magazines and then wrote many novels and books under a variety of pseudonyms. His works were serialized, published as books, and adapted for the movies. Hasegawa died at age 35 from an asthma attack.

Very scarce. OCLC: 674154413 (National Diet Library), 231381761 (University of Washington)

Edition + Condition: First edition. One-inch split at base of the spine, else very good in original decorated wrappers with a modernist design.

Item No: #362033

Price: $2,000