Surviving the Scaffold
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Summary
Without an alibi, held in prolonged detention, and interrogated continuously in a closed room, only those who have experienced it can know just how far one can withstand the persuasion of detectives and prosecutors. As for myself, to be honest, I have little confidence in my own endurance.
My interest in wrongful convictions stems from my belief that they are an intolerable injustice and the greatest insult to humanity. At the same time, I want to expose this state mechanism that sacrifices the personal lives of citizens while pretending not to know.
Editor's review
Who it's for
A good fit for
- Readers interested in postwar Japanese judicial history and wrongful-conviction redress
- Legal practitioners and investigative journalists seeking reference
- Those interested in the psychology of interrogation and reliance on confessions
- General readers hoping to understand the relationship between state power and individual fate
Not a good fit for
- Casual readers expecting light stories or fast-paced narrative
- Readers impatient with judicial procedure and case details
- Those who want only conclusion-style redress stories and do not wish to face institutional analysis
Reading tips
- Read the four cases' personal accounts first, then return to the institutional analysis; the thread will be clearer.
- Pause after each case and note the key points of arrest, interrogation, and conviction for easier comparison.
- Use the author's candor about his own endurance as an entry point to understanding interrogation pressure.
- Read alongside background material on postwar Japanese judicial history to avoid viewing individual cases in isolation.
About the publisher
Shanghai Translation Publishing House is a Chinese publisher oriented mainly toward translation and publishing. Its publications cover foreign literature, world classics and classic works, as well as social culture, folk literature and classical poetry. The database contains 2,618 titles, including Never Let Me Go, Les Misérables (2 volumes), Don Quixote (illustrated collector's edition), The Complete Comedies of Molière (4 volumes), The Complete Novels of Kafka (3 volumes), The Collected Works of Dostoevsky (9-volume set), Reason and Persons, and Oedipus Rex (Translation Classics). Its author resources include foreign writers such as Kazuo Ishiguro, Victor Hugo, Cervantes and Molière, as well as translators such as Zheng Kelu, Sun Jiameng, Li Jianwu and Zhang Kun. The publisher has brands such as "Translation Classics Selections" and "Translation Documentary," and emphasizes translated works in foreign literature and the humanities and social sciences, while also publishing bilingual dictionaries and foreign-language educational books. Public information is limited; the above is based on the book information in the database.
Contents
- 版权信息
- 版权申明
- 序幕
- 第一章 案件
- 正文一
- 正文二
- 第二章 狱窗
- 第三章 邂逅
- 第四章 重审
- 第五章 反击
- 尾声
- 后记
- 批判判决
- 获释之后
- 岩波现代文库版后记
- 解说
FAQ
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Does the book only recount the cases?
Can I read it without a legal background?
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About the author
Hiroshi Kamata, born in 1938, is a Japanese nonfiction writer and journalist who has long conducted on-site interviews on labor, pollution, and issues concerning society's lower strata, documenting ordinary people's circumstances through solid first-hand investigation. His work Back from the Execution Platform focuses on individual fates at the edge of life and death and on the justice system, while Bullying Suicides: Testimonies of the Parents of Twelve Children presents the tragedies caused by school bullying through the accounts of multiple parents, reflecting his approach of valuing the testimonies of those involved and giving voice to the silenced. Two of his works are included here, commonly classified under social culture and social science. Public information on his early life and full career is limited, yet the available works show him consistently engaging with social problems through a journalist's sense of scene and documentary method, offering Chinese readers concrete and restrained texts for understanding Japan's lower strata and related issues.
Wang Xiujuan is an author about whom limited public information is available. Three works are known to be in circulation: Surviving the Death Row, Improper Arrest, and The Rear Guard: The Last Twelve People of Yamaichi Securities. Her books are commonly classified under social culture and documentary literature. Judging from their titles and subjects, her writing centers on judicial cases, criminal procedure, and the rise and fall of financial firms, drawing on real events and focusing on the situation and fate of individuals within institutional processes. Such works usually proceed through the study of documents and interviews with those involved, reconstructing how events unfolded while showing the choices people make under pressure from the judicial system and organizations. Because biographical details about the author are not found in the available materials, her education, professional career, and writing history cannot be confirmed; readers may nonetheless gain a sense of her thematic interests and her approach to documentary writing from the works mentioned above.
