Ana (Shincho Bunko)

[Machine Translation] After quitting my job and moving to my husband's countryside, on a hot summer day I chased a black beast I had never seen before and fell into a chest-deep hole in the bank. The smell of sweet incense wafted through the air as I followed Sera, my taciturn grandfather-in-law who worked hard watering his garden, and a man I did not know who claimed to be my brother-in-law. The people she encounters are also somewhat strange, and her familiar daily life quietly takes on the color of another world. In addition to the Akutagawa Prize-winning title story, this collection includes two stories about a strange time in the lives of a friend and her husband who have started a new life in an old farmhouse in a rural village.

仕事を辞め、夫の田舎に移り住んだ私は、暑い夏の日、見たこともない黒い獣を追って、土手にあいた胸の深さの穴に落ちた。甘いお香の匂いが漂う世羅さん、庭の水撒きに励む寡黙な義祖父に、義兄を名乗る知らない男。出会う人々もどこか奇妙で、見慣れた日常は静かに異界の色を帯びる。芥川賞受賞の表題作に、農村の古民家で新生活を始めた友人夫婦との不思議な時を描く二編を収録。