First English edition

Before the Dawn (夜明け前, Yoakemae) is Tōson Shimazaki's most famous historical novel. It was originally published in Chūō Kōron in 1929 as a serial work. Shinchosha later published the work in novel form, with the first part being released in January 1932 and the second part being released in November 1935. It started with the phrase "The entire Kisoji is in the mountains" (木曾路はすべて山の中である Kisoji wa subete yama no naka de aru).^[1] The Kisoji ran through Shimazaki's hometown in Gifu Prefecture, Japan.

Following a character modeled closely after Tōson's own father Shimazaki Masaki, the novel carries its story through the turbulent decades before and after the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate sparked by the arrival of Commodore Perry's ships in 1853. The protagonist Aoyama Hanzō, a devout follower of Hirata Atsutane's idealistic nativism but tied down by his duties as the head of a rural mountain village, observes the tide of events leading to the opening and Westernization of Japan.

In the years after the civil war of 1868, the Hirata movement achieves its initial goals and becomes superficially incorporated into the new bureaucracy, but deteriorates into political impotence and is gradually expelled by the progressive-minded leadership. Hanzō, fearing that Japan's native values and way of life will be discarded and forgotten by future generations enamored by things Western, is driven insane by despair and ultimately dies after being imprisoned by his own family.

In 1953, a film based on the novel was released. It was adapted by Kaneto Shindō and directed by Kōzaburō Yoshimura (吉村 公三郎 Yoshimura Kōzaburō). It was also later adapted into a play by Joseph Stein.

List of characters

Historical characters mentioned or appearing in the story include the following. Fictionalized names used in the story are included in parenthesis.

Translation

• Before the Dawn, transl. by William E. Naff, University of Hawaii Press, April 1987, 798 pages, ISBN 0-8248-0914-9

Original work

• Yoakemae is now an open source text:

Part 1a, 1b, 2a, 2b (in Japanese)

See also

• Buddenbrooks, a German novel described by William E. Naff as the closest European analogue to Before the Dawn - another historical story similarly depicting the downfall of an ancient family after the feudal society to which it belonged disappeared in the 19th century

References