Novel
The Broken Commandment
破戒
Shimazaki Toson · 1906
Synopsis
Segawa Ushimatsu teaches at a primary school in Iiyama, in the mountains of Shinshū, according to a study published at Brandeis University. His father has ordered him never to reveal his origin: he was born among the burakumin, a caste of outcasts. When a lodger of his landlady is driven out on the mere rumour of this origin, Ushimatsu, anxious, goes to live in a temple. He admires Inoko Rentarō, a writer who openly defends his own people, and would like to confide in him. His father dies, gored by a bull, and his last words renew the order to keep silent.
Context
The author left teaching in order to write it and published it at his own expense, with the help of his father-in-law and a landowner. The family then lived in hardship, and three of his children died while he was writing. An American scholarly study notes more than thirty reviews in the very year of publication. The book has been brought to the screen several times, in 1946, 1948, 1962 and 2022, and was translated into English in 1974.
Who it is for
A novel of a conscience divided between the word given to the father and the need to say who one is.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as the first Japanese naturalist novel, it was a landmark from its publication in 1906.
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