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Kenji Nakagami. The Cape and Other Stories from the Japanese Ghetto. Eve Zimmerman, tr. Berkeley, Ca. Stone Bridge. 1999. 191 pages, ill. $12.95. ISBN 1-880656-39-6.
The "ghetto" in the title of the book under review refers to the hisabetsu buraku (outcast hamlets) inhabited by people long discriminated against for their trades and "bloodlines." That discrimination has deprived them of economic and educational opportunities and has long subjected them to stereotyping as potentially violent criminals. Kenji Nakagami (1946-92) was one such "outcast."
"The Cape" (1975), the first of the three stories in the collection, is set in the "ghetto" of Nakagami's hometown, where the protagonist Akiyuki, like the author himself, is the only illegitimate child in his family. This cursed...