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Sawako Ariyoshi. Kabuki Dancer. James R. Brandon, tr. New York. Kodansha America. 1994. 348 pages. $25. ISBN 4770017839.
Kabuki Dancer is the fourth novel by Sawako Ariyoshi (1931-81) to be translated into English. In this story about the sixteenth-century woman Okuni, who originated Japanese Kabuki theater, Ariyoshi combines her interests in women with her love of performing arts.
Ariyoshi's interest in performing arts dated from her youth. Her first story, "Jiuta" (1956; translated by Yukio Sawa and Herbert Glazer and published in Japan Quarterly, 22:1, 1975), centers on two performers of the koto, a traditional stringed instrument; another early story, "The Ink Stick,"(1961; translated by Mildred Tahara for Japan Quarterly, 22:4, 1975), tells of an aging traditional Japanese dancer. The protagonists of all Ariyoshi's translated...