is a 1930 novel by the Japanese author

Riichi Yokomitsu was an experimental, modernist Japanese writer. Yokomitsu began publishing in dōjinshi such as ''Machi'' ("Street") and ''Tō'' ("Tower") after entering Waseda University in 1916. In 1923, he published ''Nichirin'' ("The Sun"), '' ...

. It is one of the seminal works of modernism in Japanese literature. Set in a factory that makes metal nameplates, the story considers the effects of modern life on workers. The book's events unfold around conflicts over trade secrets kept hidden in a room in the center of the factory. Writing in 1930, Japanese literary critic

Hideo Kobayashi was a Japanese author, who established literary criticism as an independent art form in Japan. Early life Kobayashi was born in the Kanda district of Tokyo, where his father was a noted engineer who introduced European diamond polishing techn ...

noted that "the author of this work is not straining in the least for a new way of grasping human psychology" but concluded that the story is about "how a writer arrives at what he believes."

References

20th-century Japanese novels 1930 novels {{1930s-novel-stub