Hayashi Fumiko was one of the most popular and prolific writers in Japan during the 1930s and 1940s. Much of her work was ostensibly autobiographical, and her portrayals of struggle and perseverance among the dispossessed and disaffected attracted many readers. In the four years before her death in 1951, Hayashi published eleven serialized novels, twenty-two other volumes (mainly novels), and more than thirty short stories, some of which were among her most sophisticated and successful works. Her sole literary prize, the Joryu Bungakush (Women's Literary Prize), awarded for "Bangiku" (1948; translated as "Late Chrysanthemum," 1956), confirmed her status among the preeminent women writers of the era. Yet because critics continued to categorize her as a joryu sakka (woman writer) of joryu bungaku (women's literature), this regard for her work ensured that no matter how prominent that oeuvre became, it would still be considered marginal to the canon and would rarely receive...