IN-PERSON EVENT - The Japan Society Book Club: Troubled Waters by Ichiyo Higuchi

Date
Monday 14 December 2026
Time
7.00pm

Venue
The Japan Society
13 / 14 Cornwall Terrace
London NW1 4QP

Booking Details
Free for members of The Japan Society

Book available from Bookshop.org, Amazon and Waterstones (translated by Bryan Karetnyk)
Japanese version available here

Please help us to keep this event free and open to all! The Japan Society is a charity and its activities are made possible thanks to the support of its members. If you are planning to attend this event and are not a member (as an individual or through your employer), please consider becoming a member or making a donation if you can - the recommended donation is £5. Thank you!

Troubled Waters is a collection of five stories depicting everyday lives on the margins of Meiji‑era Tokyo. Focusing on courtesans, children, and working‑class families, the book explores poverty, desire, and unspoken longing with lyrical restraint. Through quiet moral tension and delicate observation, it offers an intimate portrait of social hardship and emotional endurance in a rapidly changing Japan.

Ichiyo Higuchi (1872–1896) was a pioneering Japanese writer of the Meiji period and is widely regarded as Japan’s first professional woman writer. Writing in a refined yet accessible classical style, she produced short fiction that sensitively depicts the lives of women, children, and the urban poor in late‑nineteenth‑century Tokyo. Drawing on her own experiences of poverty, her work combines psychological insight with social realism. Although her career was cut short by tuberculosis, she left an enduring literary legacy and remains a central figure in modern Japanese literature.

If you have any questions, please call The Japan Society office on 020 3075 1996 or email events@japansociety.org.uk.

Booking Info

• You should receive an automated email from The Japan Society to let you know that your booking is confirmed.
  
  
• If you don't receive any confirmation emails or links, please check your spam folder or email events@japansociety.org.uk.
  
  
• If you are not a member of The Japan Society (as an individual or through your employer), please consider becoming a member or making a donation if you can - the recommended donation is £5.