High in the mountains above Kagoshima, an old man finds the remains of a forbidden ritual. A headless dog. Ritual kindling. The residue of a curse aimed at killing children.
So begins Naoki Sanjūgo’s Nangoku Taiheiki, the sprawling historical epic that made its author’s name synonymous with popular fiction in Japan. First serialized in 1930–31, the novel plunges into the Oyura Disturbance, the real succession crisis that nearly tore apart the Shimazu clan of Satsuma in the years before the Meiji Restoration. On one side, Lord Narioki and his concubine Oyura, wielding sorcery, poison, and political cunning to install their chosen heir. On the other, Nariakira, the reformist eldest son whose vision of a modern, industrialized Japan threatens everything the old guard has built.
Caught between them: Kotarō, a young samurai hunting the sorcerer who murdered his family. Masumitsu, a swaggering political operative who fights with a pipe, a pistol, and an inexhaustible supply of nerve. Nangyoku, a comic storyteller whose street performances mask a dangerous loyalty. Miyuki, a woman sent into enemy territory with a dagger and a mission she did not choose. And behind them all, the historical figures who would soon remake Japan: Saigō Takamori, Ōkubo Toshimichi, Shimazu Nariakira himself.
Naoki braids occult horror, swordfight choreography, Edo backstreet comedy, political intrigue, and doomed romance into a narrative that moves with the propulsive energy of serialized fiction and the emotional weight of serious literature. Volume One, The Crumbling Abyss, follows the conspiracy from its discovery through assassination attempts, factional warfare, desperate journeys, and the catastrophic death that changes everything.
The Naoki Prize, Japan’s most prestigious award for popular fiction, is named after the author. An original English translation by Vox Day, The Chronicle of the Southern Kingdom: The Crumbling Abyss is now available on Amazon for Kindle, KU, and audiobook. An excerpt is available at Castalia Library.
NB: This is an excellent book and I am tremendously annoyed with myself for failing to release it when I finished the translation several months ago. A small press recently released the first English translation in July, so while this is an original translation, it is not the first English translation.