CANNIBALS: A Hauntingly Beautiful Japanese Novella
LITERATURE
Written by Willow Heath
Published April 22, 2024
This article will soon be available in: Deutsch.
Shinya Tanaka’s award-winning novella Cannibals was originally published in 2011 and adapted to the big screen in 2013 after achieving great success in Japan. Now, thanks to Kalau Almony and Honford Star, English readers can enjoy this novella, too. Though “enjoy” might not be the right word.
(Shinya Tanaka’s Cannibals, translated from the Japanese by Kalau Almony, cover Design by Jun Kawana, Honford Star, 2024)
Cannibals is not an easy read. This impactful tale demands every trigger warning for abuse, both physical and emotional. Making things more complicated is the fact that this is a story written by a man about masculine aggression. The perspective of privilege cannot and should not be ignored. Despite all of this, however, Cannibals remains a worthwhile, thought-provoking, and unforgettable reading experience.
WILLOW HEATH is a literature and culture blogger, book critic, and freelance writer and editor, known for her insightful reviews and analyses. In 2018, she launched Books and Bao, a popular platform delving into international literature, travel, and gastronomy. She also has experience in education, including teaching high school English and university-level courses in East Asia and Europe.
Cannibals is set at the tail end of the 1980s, in an unassuming riverside neighbourhood where teenage protagonist Toma lives with his father Madoka—a serial abuser of women. Toma’s one-handed mother sits, day after day, on the riverbank where she cleans fish and repeatedly reminds Toma that his father is a monster of a man. Having been abandoned by his mother and witnessing his father abuse his current girlfriend, Toma’s deepest, darkest fear is turning into his father. He sees it as his fate to do so, and he desperately wonders how to break free of that before it comes true.
Adding to the strain and the foreboding is the fact that Madoka’s girlfriend, Kotoko, is pregnant.
There is no positivity to be found in Cannibals, but there is plenty of beauty, thanks in large part to the surreal nature of the plot and character writing, and also to the impeccable, considerate translation skills of Kalau Almony.
SHINYA TANAKA is an award-winning author known for his captivating literary works. He debuted in 2005 with "Tsumetai Mizu no Hitsuji," followed by "Sanagi," which earned him the Kawabata Yasunari Award in 2007. His collection "Kireta Kusari," including "Sanagi," won the Mishima Yukio Award in 2008. Tanaka's "Cannibals" secured him the Akutagawa Award in 2011, later adapted into a film.
(Photo of Shinya Tanaka courtesy of Pen Online)
The first surreal element of the novel, the reader will notice the placement and behaviour of Toma’s mother. She is defined by her victimhood; she is a fractured person who sits by the river, cleans fish, and makes small talk with her son whenever he passes by. She abandoned him but never strayed too far. Her behaviour and dialogue is off-kilter; it feels feverish in its nature—like a Lynchian script. Beyond this, the novella’s final act takes place in a storm of biblical proportions which washes away any sense of reality. It sweeps the reader off their feet, disorientating them and hurling them through a nightmarish landscape of impossible qualities.
Though the surreal elements of the novel are subtle—far from fantastical—they serve to detach the story and its themes from reality. This is not a novella that romanticises abuse; instead, it presents its own events as feverish, disturbing, and wrong. So wrong, in fact, that they have set the world off balance.
Shinya Tanaka’s Cannibals, translated from the Japanese by Kalau Almony, cover Design by Jun Kawana, Honford Star, 2024
The original cover of Cannibals (共喰い) by Shinya Tanaka. 集英社文庫, 2013.
Similar in its tone and thematic explorations to the works of feminist author Selva Almada, Tanaka’s Cannibals muses on the cycles of abuse present under patriarchy; the ways in which sons inherit the poisons built up within their fathers. Toma is desperate to break free of this. Even if he gives into it for a time, is he still redeemable?
Adding to the thoughtfulness of this story is the almost soothing beauty of its writing. There is a calming tenderness to many of its descriptive passages. The ways in which Tanaka depicts the river, the ramshackle homes of the people who live beside it, and the patterns of behaviour there—everything is written with a precision that borders on poetry.
Cannibals is a unique novella that has the capacity to upset many people. It will not be palatable to every reader, and it does not try to be. But it is a poignant story about masculine abuse that will bind readers to a raft and send them through a fever dream before setting them free at the end.
MORE ABOUT CANNIBALS
Edited by
Anthony Burger & Marvin Nauendorff
Acknowledgements
Hanford Star
Shinya Tanaka
Kalau Almony
Jun Kawana
Selva Almada