This rare English-language edition brings together two works by Taijun Takeda(1912–1976), This Outcast Generation and Luminous Moss. This haunting postwar novella recounts an incident of cannibalism that took place during World War II, exploring ethical questions related to moral responsibility and human behavior under extreme conditions.
The story begins in a cave on the northern island of Japan, where the narrator recounts an encounter with a mysterious glowing moss:
Instead of describing the glow of the moss as golden green, it would be more accurate to say that somehow the golden green moss was transformed into light itself.
Luminous Moss went on to inspire both an opera (1972) and a film (1992), weaving Takeda’s imagery of glowing moss into an allegory about memory, war, and human endurance.
Published by Charles E. Tuttle Company in 1967 and translated by Yusaburo Shibuya and Sanford Goldstein, it is bound in its original hardcover with a clear protective library-style dust jacket, this copy is exceptionally well-preserved for a first English edition. This volume also includes This Outcast Generation, about a young man from a defeated nation living in a foreign country, indifferent to the world, eliciting comparisons with Albert Camus’s The Stranger.
About the Author:
Taijun Takeda (1912–1976) was a novelist, playwright, and essayist, born in Tokyo. He studied Chinese literature, and later taught in Hokkaido, the northern island where his novella Luminous Moss unfolds.
Publisher: Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1967
Format: Hardcover with clear protective library-style dust jacket, 145 pages
Dimensions: 5.5 in x 7.5 in (14 cm x 19 cm)
Condition: Excellent
This rare English-language edition brings together two works by Taijun Takeda(1912–1976), This Outcast Generation and Luminous Moss. This haunting postwar novella recounts an incident of cannibalism that took place during World War II, exploring ethical questions related to moral responsibility and human behavior under extreme conditions.
The story begins in a cave on the northern island of Japan, where the narrator recounts an encounter with a mysterious glowing moss:
Instead of describing the glow of the moss as golden green, it would be more accurate to say that somehow the golden green moss was transformed into light itself.
Luminous Moss went on to inspire both an opera (1972) and a film (1992), weaving Takeda’s imagery of glowing moss into an allegory about memory, war, and human endurance.
Published by Charles E. Tuttle Company in 1967 and translated by Yusaburo Shibuya and Sanford Goldstein, it is bound in its original hardcover with a clear protective library-style dust jacket, this copy is exceptionally well-preserved for a first English edition. This volume also includes This Outcast Generation, about a young man from a defeated nation living in a foreign country, indifferent to the world, eliciting comparisons with Albert Camus’s The Stranger.
About the Author:
Taijun Takeda (1912–1976) was a novelist, playwright, and essayist, born in Tokyo. He studied Chinese literature, and later taught in Hokkaido, the northern island where his novella Luminous Moss unfolds.
Publisher: Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1967
Format: Hardcover with clear protective library-style dust jacket, 145 pages
Dimensions: 5.5 in x 7.5 in (14 cm x 19 cm)
Condition: Excellent
