This exquisite collection of short fiction by Sata Ineko (1904-1998) offers readers a fascinating glimpse into the lives of women rarely dignified in fiction: glamorous cafe waitresses, feisty communist activists, a tortured novelist, a soldier's wife, and single women in Japan's Korean colony. Her delicately penned portraits challenge the tired, erotic tropes of the geisha and schoolgirl, while delving into the dilemmas women themselves faced in their personal and professional relationships.

The stories and novella translated here span a period of two decades and the most important...