A-Un

A-Un is the only novel by the Japanese writer Kuniko Mukoda, originally created as a television script and later rewritten as a novel. The simplified Chinese edition was translated by Liu Ziqian and published by China Friendship Publishing Company in 2018. The title's "A" is the first sound made when opening the mouth, and "Un" is the last sound when closing it; the pair of komainu stone statues seated facing each other before a shrine torii, one with its mouth open and one with its mouth closed, are named "A" and "Un" respectively, and "A-Un" thus means an intimate bond of connected breath and shared spirit. The story revolves around two families. Kadokura Shuzo is handsome, and almost every woman on the street turns to look at him; Mizuta Senkichi is an ordinary, unremarkable middle-aged man. One is like a flower, the other like a leaf, yet their friendship is as close as the pair of komainu before the shrine. When Senkichi's family moves back to Tokyo after a long absence, Kadokura enthusiastically arranges their new home, even boiling the bathwater himself just to see Senkichi's surprised expression. Yet in secret, Kadokura has long harbored an unspeakable affection for Senkichi's wife, Tomi, and Tomi has also been stirred by the handsome Kadokura. When Kadokura's mistress suddenly announces she is pregnant, the calm surface of life begins to crumble, and his wife Kimiko is deeply shaken, nearly collapsing. Men's loyalty and feelings for a friend's wife, family responsibility and repressed desire entangle with one another, and secrets that must never be spoken surface one by one on the eve of the coming Sino-Japanese War. Kuniko Mukoda, with precise dialogue and minute everyday details, writes the lives and inner thoughts of ordinary Showa families under the shadow of the times, and the work is regarded as combining the strengths of a friendship novel, a love novel, and an anti-war novel.