英文摘要 |
Hayashi Kyouk won the Gunzo Shinjin Bungakusho Award in 1975 for her story collection, ''Square of Worship'', which also won the Agutagawa Prize in July of the same year. Hayashi Kyouko thus became a famous writer. Twenty years after her devastating experience in the nuclear explosion, she started to write about nuclear explosions based on her own experience, particularly on the life and death of female victims. ''Square of Worship'' includes ''Square of Worship,'' ''A Tomb for Two,'' and ''The Procession of a Cloudy Day.'' In ''The Procession of a Cloudy Day,'' the wife who is a victim of a nuclear explosion has to go to the hospital for regular check-ups while worrying about whether her children might have been affected by the nuclear explosion as well. At the same time, her husband does not understand her anxiety and sneers at her. ''A Tomb for Two'' describes the sense of guilt and helplessness experienced by a woman who has to run away under such circumstances without caring for her friends or the entanglements of the two families of the victims. ''Square of Worship'' depicts the scene of a nuclear explosion in which some victims die instantly, others die within two or three weeks, and yet others who cannot escape death even after twenty years. In this collection, the author raises a number of significant questions: how do the victims of nuclear explosion live on? What is the attitude of the state toward the victims? Through these questions she reveals the tragedies caused by nuclear explosions. |