This week’s Castalia translation is The Gold Demon by Koyo Ozaki.
A Japanese classic of love, ruthlessness, and betrayal
Kan’ichi Hazama and Miya Shigisawa have loved each other since childhood. Raised under the same roof, pledged to marry, they share a bond so deep that Kan’ichi has staked his entire future on it. Then a wealthy man with a diamond on his finger enters their world, and Miya’s parents, dazzled by the prospect of a brilliant match, break the engagement. On a winter night at the beach in Atami, Kan’ichi confronts the woman he loves and demands she choose. And she cannot answer him.
Kan’ichi, shattered by betrayal, abandons his studies and remakes himself into a ruthless man determined to worship the only god that never disappoints: money. Miya, married into luxury, discovers that wealth without love is its own kind of prison. As the years pass, guilt, longing, and the memory of what was lost draw them toward each other again, but the damage may be beyond repair. The Gold Demon is about what happens to the human soul when love is tested by fortune and found wanting.
Ozaki Kōyō (1868–1903) was the most celebrated Japanese novelist of his generation. A prodigy who founded the influential Ken’yūsha literary society while still a student, he became the star writer of the Yomiuri Shimbun and the mentor to an entire generation of younger writers, among them Izumi Kyōka. He began serializing The Gold Demon on New Year’s Day, 1897, and the novel became a national sensation, but he died at the age of thirty-five, leaving the story unfinished. It is the most celebrated unfinished work in Japanese literature. The novel has been adapted into seventeen films and has never been out of print in Japan.
This translation by Kenji Weaver is the first complete English translation of The Gold Demon.
To read an excerpt from this 129-year old work, now appearing for the first time in English, visit Castalia Library. You can also support our weekly translation efforts by subscribing to the Castalia Library substack.