PENGUIN CLASSICS
Grave of the Fireflies
Grave of the Fireflies
Translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori
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Hotaru No Haka included in American Hijiki, Hotaru No Haka by Akiyuki Nosaka
This translation first published in Great Britain in Penguin Classics 2025 001
Copyright © Yoko Nosaka 1968
Original Japanese edition published in 1972 by SHINCHOSHA Publishing Co., Ltd.
This English edition published by arrangement with SHINCHOSHA Publishing Co., Ltd, In care of Tuttle-Mori Agency, Inc., Tokyo.
Translation copyright © Ginny Tapley Takemori, 2025
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ISBN: 978– 0– 241– 78021– 3
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Grave of the Fireflies
In the mainline Sannomiya Station, bayside exit, Seita sat slumped against a column, its tiles peeling off to expose the bare concrete, with his bottom on the floor and both legs stretched out straight before him. He was sunburned to a frazzle and hadn’t washed for almost a month, yet his emaciated cheeks were sunken and pale. Come nightfall, he gazed at the silhouettes of men talking rowdily with excessive bravado as they warmed themselves around the watch fire like bandits. In the morning he saw children his age heading off to middle school as if nothing were amiss, distinguishing between the khakiclad boys with white bundles from the top prefectural school and those with satchels on their backs from the city school, and girls sporting sailor tops over their baggy wartime pantaloons,