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Child of Fortune
Yuko Tsushima, Geraldine Harcourt (Translator)

Child of Fortune

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Summary

Koko won't do what is expected of her. Defying her family's wishes, she has brought up her eleven-year-old daughter alone in her apartment. And now, after a casual affair, she is unexpectedly pregnant again. What will this mean for her already troubled relationship with her daughter? As she faces the future, memories of her own childhood loss flood into her consciousness, threatening to overwhelm her.

'A terrific novel' Angela Carter

Translated by Geraldine Harcourt

Reviews

  • A classic novel as relevant today as when it was published nearly 40 years ago . . . at once powerfully uplifting and achingly sad, Geraldine Harcourt's elegant translation captures Tsushima's poignant wisdom on the female struggle with societal expectations.
    Kris Kosaka, Japan Times

About the author

Yuko Tsushima

Yuko Tsushima was born in Tokyo in 1947, the daughter of the novelist Osamu Dazai, who took his own life when she was one year old. Her prolific literary career began with her first collection of short stories, Shaniku-sai (Carnival), which she published at the age of twenty-four. She won many awards, including the Izumi Kyoka Prize for Literature (1977), the Kawabata Prize (1983) and the Tanizaki Prize (1998). She died in 2016.
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