Child of Fortune (novel)
{{Short description|1978 novel by Yuko Tsushima}}
{{use mdy dates|date=November 2024}}
{{Infobox book
| author = Yuko Tsushima
| isbn = 978-4061976986
| pub_date = June 29, 1978 (Japanese)
October 30, 2018 (English)
| name = Child of Fortune
| publisher = Kodansha (Japanese)
Penguin Classics (English)
| genre = Literary fiction, autofiction, I-novel
| language = Japanese
| country = Japan
| preceded_by = 歓びの島 (Island of Joy)
| followed_by = 氷原 (Ice Field)
| translator = Geraldine Harcourt
| awards = Women's Literature Prize
| image = "Child of Fortune" by Yuko Tsushima book cover.png
}}
{{Nihongo|Child of Fortune|寵児|Chōji|lit. Favorite}} is a 1978 novel by Yūko Tsushima.{{Cite book |last=津島 |first=佑子 |script-title=ja:寵児 |publisher=講談社 |year=1978 |isbn=978-4061976986}} In Japan, It won the Women's Literature Prize in the same year.{{Cite news |last=Kosaka |first=Kris |date=December 16, 2017 |title='Child of Fortune': Yuko Tsushima's prize-winning and feminist novel on womanhood |url=https://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2017/12/16/books/book-reviews/child-fortune-yuko-tsushimas-prize-winning-feminist-novel-womanhood/ |work=The Japan Times}} An English translation by Geraldine Harcourt was published in 2018 by Penguin Classics.{{Cite book |last=Tsushima |first=Yuko |title=Child of Fortune |date=October 30, 2018 |publisher=Penguin Classics |isbn=978-0241335031 |translator-last=Harcourt |translator-first=Geraldine}}
Synopsis
The novel follows Koko, a middle-aged woman and piano teacher, who raises her 11-year-old daughter, Kayako, alone in an apartment and once again gets pregnant after a brief affair.
Critical reception
For LitHub, Rónán Hession recommended the book in a list of books that excelled in empathetic writing.{{Cite web |last=Hession |first=Rónán |date=2020-08-07 |title=The Quest for Kindness is One of Fiction’s Great Challenges |url=https://lithub.com/the-quest-for-kindness-is-one-of-fictions-great-challenges/ |access-date=2024-11-06 |website=Literary Hub |language=en-US}} The Japan Times called it "A novel at once powerfully uplifting and achingly sad" and lauded Geraldine Harcourt's "elegant translation". The Japan House in Los Angeles observed how Tsushima tackled the I-novel form with a "distinctly female spin".{{Cite web |date=December 16, 2019 |title=Female Voices in Japanese Literature Today |url=https://www.japanhousela.com/articles/female-voices-in-japanese-literature-today/ |access-date=2024-11-06 |website=Japan House, Los Angeles |language=en}} Similarly, Abhrajyoti Chakraborty in The New Yorker cautioned against reading Tsushima's works, including Child of Fortune, through a strictly biographical lens, stating that such an approach would be "to deny her narrators a selfhood independent of society, and to deny Tsushima the freedom, as a writer, not to be conflated with her protagonists."{{Cite news |last=Chakraborty |first=Abhrajyoti |date=2019-04-09 |title=The Overlooked Autofiction of Yuko Tsushima |url=https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-overlooked-autofiction-of-yuko-tsushima |access-date=2024-11-06 |work=The New Yorker |language=en-US |issn=0028-792X}}
After Harcourt's death in 2019, Newsroom wrote a tribute article on her behalf, stating that "Harcourt's translations seem to hold and carry the voices of the original, which strikes me as an unfathomable kind of magic" specifically with regard to Child of Fortune and Territory of Light.{{Cite web |last=Kung |first=Melanie |date=2022-02-08 |title=Found in translation |url=https://newsroom.co.nz/2022/02/08/found-in-translation/ |access-date=2024-11-06 |website=Newsroom |language=en-US}}