Short stories
Betty-san
ベティさんの庭
Michiko Yamamoto · 1972
Synopsis
Betty is a Japanese woman who married a foreigner after the war and has lived outside her country for some twenty years, according to the presentation by the publisher Shinchōsha. The Tokushima Shimbun places the story among those that show Japanese war brides settled in Australia. She is raising three boys, as the author recalled in a lecture published by Bunkyō University. Far from her native country, she feels a deep nostalgia: trees, grass, birds, wind and sky, nothing around her seems to belong to her.
Context
The text appeared in 1972 in the journal Shinchō, and gave its title the following year to a collection published by Shinchōsha. It is drawn, like the other stories in the volume, from the author's stay in Darwin, in northern Australia, where she had accompanied her husband in 1967. The Australian database AustLit lists it, with a 1994 study on images of Australia in Japanese literature. Geraldine Harcourt translated it into English for Kodansha International.
Who it is for
A short, restrained story, for readers interested in Japanese women who left to live far from their country with a husband from elsewhere.
Prizes and reception
Akutagawa Prize in 1972 (1973 according to the Tokushima Shimbun); an English version appeared in 1983.
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