ABSTRACT
Arrowroot of Yoshino (Yoshinokuzu, 1931) is usually classed with other stories written by canonical author Tanizaki Jun’ichiro¯ (1886-1965) in celebration of mother love, or haha-koi. The protagonist Tsumura has always yearned for his mother, who died when he was young. When he is in his early thirties he finds a cache of secret letters to his mother from her own mother in Yoshino. They reveal that she had been sold into prostitution before his father redeemed and married her in Osaka. Tsumura uses the return address to trace his mother’s family to a tiny village deep in the mountains south of the city, where he promptly falls in love with his mother’s grand-niece. “With a little polishing,” he tells his friend, “she might be just like my mother!”1
