These selected stories illustrate the powerful way Masuda's fiction taps into an undercurrent of disquiet and loneliness that pervades contemporary urban society in Japan.

Here is a collection of short stories by the contemporary woman writer Masuda Mizuko, who has been writing actively since the late 1970s and is anthologized in major collections of Japanese women's literary writing, such as Josei sakka shirizu. Throughout her writing, Masuda examines themes of selfhood and autonomy, loneliness and desire, and the deep tensions in female-male relations. Her fiction explores issues of female subjectivity and female biology in ways that are unique and intriguing. These collected stories illustrate the powerful way Masuda's fiction taps into an undercurrent of disquiet and loneliness that pervades contemporary urban society in Japan.