is a Japanese novel written by

Tōson Shimazaki was the pen-name of Haruki Shimazaki, a Japanese writer active in the Meiji, Taishō and early Shōwa periods of Japan. He began his career as a Romantic poet, but went on to establish himself as a major proponent of Japanese Naturalism. Ea ...

, first serialized in 1910–11. This autobiographical novel deals with the disintegration of two provincial families, the Koizumis and the Hashimotos.

Plot

''The Family'' covers a period of twelve years in the lives of the Koizumi and the Hashimoto families, from 1898 to 1910. (These two families are based on the real-life families of Shimazaki and Takase: one was Tōson's own family and the other the family into which his eldest sister married.) Originally well respected, the families find themselves slipping down the social ladder as their eldest sons, Koizumi Minoru and Hashimoyo Tatsuo, take on disastrous financial projects. The character Sankichi is the youngest son of the Koizumi family, a writer, and an ''

alter ego An alter ego (Latin for "other I", " doppelgänger") means an alternate self, which is believed to be distinct from a person's normal or true original personality. Finding one's alter ego will require finding one's other self, one with a differen ...

'' for the author himself.

Translation

''The Family'' was published in an English translation provided by Cecilia Segawa Seigle in 1976.

References

1911 novels Japanese novels 20th-century Japanese novels Novels by Tōson Shimazaki Novels first published in serial form {{1910s-family-novel-stub