Author · 1902–1930
渡辺温Watanabe On · わたなべ おん
Watanabe On was a Japanese modernist writer of short fiction. He is closely associated with the magazine Shinseinen (新青年), which he also worked on as an editor. His stories are brief, stylish and often fantastical or bittersweet, and they are marked by the urban, cosmopolitan atmosphere of the 1920s: cafés, bars, dance halls and foreigners. His elder brother, Watanabe Keisuke, was also a writer of mystery fiction.
Stories by Watanabe On
ああ華族様だよ と私は嘘を吐くのであった — A Nobleman, of Course," I Lied
This is a short first-person sketch of one night out in Yokohama in the years after the Russian Revolution. The narrator, new to the city's nightlife, is guided by his neighbour Alexander, a handsome and penniless émigré who once danced at…