Nue / 鵺

Abstract

Translator’s Note Ogino Anna (born 1956) is a fiction writer, critic, and professor of French literature at Keio University. She received the Akutagawa Prize in 1991 for her short story “Water on One’s Back” (Seioiri mizu); since then, she has published numerous stories, novels, and other works, including The Crab, He, and I (Kani to kare to watashi, 2007), a tour de force of parody and trauma chronicling her partner’s struggle with, and eventual death from, cancer. The story translated here, “Nue,” first appeared in the literary journal Bungakukai (World of Literature) in May 2015, and subsequently was included in her 2017 story collection The River of Cassis (Kashisugawa). The unnamed narrator of “Nue,” in recovery from cancer surgery and in the early days of chemotherapy, lives in Yokohama, leaving the city only rarely. In addition to her own illness, the protagonist must deal with a querulous elderly mother who demands her attention, nags her, criticizes the food she diligently prepares, and demeans her for being ill. Here, as in other of her works, Ogino addresses the themes of liminality and hybridity, portraying a middle-aged woman who is sick yet also healthy, a patient yet also a caregiver, a mother in many ways to her own mother. This fluidity is emblematized by the slippage of verb tenses in Ogino’s