The Sea's Fire Festival
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Summary
The story takes place on the Kamakura seashore in midsummer. Shinichi and Yumiko, a young man and woman, kindle the flame of love, but then the elegant and mysterious girl Tsukiko appears, and Shinichi falls in love with her at first sight; Tachikawa and Asako are regarded by those around them as a perfect couple, yet neither dares to break through the thin veil between them; Tsukiko and her sister are deeply attached to each other, but the two sisters do not share the same father, and this secret causes both of them great pain... Several young people chase and wander along the Kamakura seaside, savoring the sweetness and sorrow of their respective youths. When the Fire Festival of the Sea is held in Kamakura, the memorial lanterns drift away with the waves, and the youthful stories of these young people also reach their final curtain.
Editor's review
Who it's for
A good fit for
- Readers who love Kawabata and want to trace his beginnings
- Readers interested in coming-of-age love and the sorrow of growing up
- Readers attentive to modern Japanese literature and mythological symbolism
- Readers who prefer a summer seaside atmosphere and delicate psychological description
Not a good fit for
- Readers expecting the extreme psychological depth of Kawabata's mature period
- Readers who prefer fast-paced plots with strong conflict
- Readers impatient with multi-sided romance and symbolic narrative
Reading tips
- First read it as a coming-of-age novel, then look back at how the mythological elements mirror the characters' relationships.
- Note the unspoken details among Shinichi, Yumiko, Tsukiko, and others, and feel the sense of distance.
- Read several chapters in a row on a summer day or at night to absorb the atmospheric rhythm of the seashore and the fire festival.
- After finishing, compare it with Kawabata's later works to observe the continuity of his youth writing and psychological description.
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
- 海滨的歌垣
- 虚幻的马
- 接吻
- 圆舞
- 精灵
- 香鱼
- 香树
- 海之火祭
- 化装舞会
- 他们的去向
- 终章
FAQ
Where does this book stand in Kawabata's oeuvre?
What role do the mythological elements play in the book?
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About the author
Kawabata Yasunari (1899–1972) was a Japanese novelist and a leading figure of the New Sensationist school, born in Osaka. A prolific writer, he is represented on this site by 147 works, spanning essays and miscellaneous prose as well as foreign literature. His representative works include The Izu Dancer, Snow Country, Thousand Cranes, and The Old Capital; Snow Country in particular exists in multiple editions and translations, a sign of its wide circulation. Kawabata is known for his delicate prose, which interweaves human emotion with natural scenery to express the spiritual character of the Japanese people, and often conveys a sense of the beauty of impermanence in life and death. In 1968 he received the Nobel Prize in Literature, an important landmark in the global recognition of Japanese literature; he died in 1972. Beyond his novels, his essays and miscellaneous writings also deserve attention.
Public information about Yu Rongsheng is limited, and no systematic record of his identity or career is currently available. The four works held in the collection, however, show that his writing and editorial work touch on foreign literature, literary appreciation, and inspirational growth. The Fire Festival of the Sea and The Story of a Small Town by the River appear to be fiction or narrative works, while A New Reader of Articles and Selected Readings in Japanese Literature clearly point toward essay writing and the reading and appreciation of Japanese literature. His works combine literary creation with literary education, attending both to readability and to close reading and understanding of texts, and thus present a dual character of creative writing and guided reading. On the basis of the available material, it is difficult to give a detailed account of his life and the full range of his work, but the above titles already outline his basic orientation toward the translation and introduction of foreign literature, guidance in essay writing, and the popularization of literary appreciation, offering readers a starting point for further exploration.
