The Dancing Girl
Ōgai Mori · 1862–1922 · Japan
Originally Maihime (Japanese) · translated by Richard Bowring
Why it matters
A Japanese student in Berlin falls for a penniless dancer, and his government's recall home forces a reckoning between the life he wants and the career he's spent years building. Mori's slender, autobiographical debut founded modern Japanese fiction's confessional first person.
At a glance
autobiographical fictiontragedyromance
Difficulty 4/10medium pace96 pagesA short, single-voiced confession, though its formal Meiji-era Japanese can feel archaic in translation.
