[Tokyo] 東京 , 講談社 , 1995. Illustrations by Chō Shinta (長新太). Series: はじめてのおはなし絵本, 12.
8vo. 17, [1] pp. incl. wrappers, ill.
The 'God of Nonsense' takes on one of Japan's best-known folk tales.
Chō Shinta (長新太; 1927–2005) is among the most inventive Japanese picture-book artists of the twentieth century — an illustrator, manga artist and children's author whose deadpan, brightly coloured absurdity earned him the nickname "the God of Nonsense". He was placed on the IBBY Honour List in 1974 and was Japan's nominee for the Hans Christian Andersen Award for Illustration in both 1998 and 2000.
Here he illustrates the tale of the tongue-cut sparrow: a kind old man who nurses an injured bird, his greedy wife who cuts out its tongue, the sparrow's hidden house in the bamboo, and the two baskets — one light, one heavy — from which the wife chooses badly. What climbs out of the heavy basket is a procession of yōkai, the spirits and monsters of Japanese folklore, and Chō's version of them is closer to comic invention than to horror.
The text is by Sueyoshi Akiko (末吉暁子; 1942–2016), a Kōdansha editor turned children's writer, best known for the long-running "Zokuzoku-mura no Obake" series and winner of the Noma Prize for Juvenile Literature in 1986.
Binding & condition
Original pictorial boards, issued without a title page. Near very good: very light wear to the corners and spine.
Rarity
No copy traced through OCLC or in Japanese libraries.
