Wheat And Soldiers
Cód:
491_9781406775846
WHEAT AND SOLDIERS CONTENTS WHEAT AND SOLDIERS An Impression by William Henry Chamberlin vii TRANSLATORS FOREWORD by Baroness Shidzue Ishimoto ix EARTH AND SOLDIERS 3 WHEAT AND SOLDIERS 151 Wheat and Soldiers An Impression by William Henry Chamberlin Wheat and Soldiers is, to the best of my knowl edge, the first deeply significant book to come out of the Sino-Japanese conflict. The author, Corporal Ashihei Hino, is a soldier in the ranks of the Jap anese army but the first quality that lifts his work far above the general run of war books is the complete absence of any propagandist element. Hino is neither prowar nor antiwar, neither pro-Japanese nor anti-Japanese. What he endeavors to do very successfully is to give the human side of the Japanese drive for Suchow-fu, in which he partici pated, to show himself and his fellow-soldiers not as legendary heroes but as credible men, their moments of despair and weakness blending with acts of great courage and devotion. Wheat and Soldiers possesses some of the time less, epic character that made Remarques All Quiet on the Western Front, by general agreement, the outstanding book on the World War, And it has already achieved in Japan the phenomenal success of All Quiet on the Western Front in Germany and other countries. Nearly a half million copies have vii viii WHEAT AND SOLDIERS been sold, although only a few months have passed since the book was published. The reason for this extraordinary popularity is obvious. Hino is telling what war really is, with all the elements of pain and terror that are systematically omitted from censored newspaper correspondence and official military pub lications. The Japanese people who have brothers, husbands, sons, friends at the front appreciate this fact and have responded to the appeal of the book in enormous numbers. Before the war Mr. Hino was a well-known writer in Japan and the winner of a literary prize. TRANSLATOR S FOREWORD Less than a year after the outbreak of fighting betwe
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