Hoshi Ochite, Nao

[Machine Translation] The 165th Naoki Prize winner. Kawanabe Gyosai, a painter of unparalleled renown, is dead. His half-brother, Shuzaburo, is always haranguing his surviving daughter, Toyo (Gyosui). He may resent her for having been adopted so early. With Gyosai's death, the balance that had been barely maintained within the Kawanabe family was shattered. It was obvious that the elder brother had no intention of taking over the Kawanabe family. The younger brother, Kiroku, was so immersed in a life of rootlessness that he could not be counted on, and the younger sister, Kiku, was too sickly to live much longer. The fate of the Kawanabe clan rests on Toyo's shoulders. This is a life story of a female painter who ran through the Meiji and Taisho eras, tossed around by the shadow of her father.

第165回直木賞受賞作。不世出の絵師、河鍋暁斎が死んだ。残された娘のとよ(暁翠)に対し、腹違いの兄・周三郎は事あるごとに難癖をつけてくる。早くから養子に出されたことを逆恨みしているのかもしれない。暁斎の死によって、これまで河鍋家の中で辛うじて保たれていた均衡が崩れた。兄が河鍋の家を継ぐ気がないのは明白であった。弟の記六は根無し草のような生活にどっぷりつかっていて頼りなく、妹のきくは病弱で長くは生きられそうもない。河鍋一門の行末はとよの双肩にかかっているのだったが―。父の影に翻弄され、明治から大正を駆け抜けた女絵師の一代記。