The Citadel in Spring by Hiroyuki Agawa


The Citadel in Spring
Title : The Citadel in Spring
Author :
Rating :
ISBN : 0870119605
ISBN-10 : 9780870119606
Language : English
Format Type : Hardcover
Number of Pages : -
Publication : First published January 1, 1991
Awards : Yomiuri Prize 読売文学賞 Fiction (1952)

Koji Obata, a young man from Hiroshima, is forced to graduate early from Tokyo Imperial University in 1942 to help fight in the war, not knowing what awaits him in the coming years


The Citadel in Spring Reviews


  • Tenma

    “Citadel in Spring” is an underrated novel about WWII that should be more widely talked about. It is a beautiful, heartbreaking novel written from the perspective of the Japanese during the war. Although fiction, I believe this novel is based on true events in the life of Hiroyuki Agawa. It tells the story of Koji Obata, a twenty something student of Chinese literature who enlists in the army to serve as a telecommunication officer in Tokyo and later in China. It starts when Koji was a college student when the war was about to escalate to his eventual repatriation to Japan after the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima.

    Unlike most western novels that emphasize the savagery of the Japanese during the war, “Citadel in Spring” humanizes the average Japanese soldier who was forced to participate in the war effort. It narrates the joy and suffering of the ordinary people in Japan during and after the war. Since Koji did not participate in actual combats, this novel is not about heroics, it simply talks about Koji’s family, loved ones, and friends, and the impact of war on his life and those he cared most about. It reminds me of the movie “letters from Iwo Jima”, especially the first half before the battle. Agawa, being a soldier himself, first published this novel in 1949, when the events of the war were still fresh on his mind. Although it has been more than two decades since it was translated into English, nothing in the translation feels outdated.

    Agawa maintains a neutral tone throughout the novel. He is not apologetic nor justifying the war. His thoughts were elegantly summarized in the following paragraph where he refers to the historical aggression of western nations in east Asia:
    “For hundreds of years Western nations have used their guns and ships and sense of racial superiority just to fill their coffers. Did they care what they were doing was evil? All Japan did was get a late start in the game and make a spectacular mess of it, copying the Western countries, and doing it badly. If imitation is to be put on trial, what about the masters of evil who taught us how to do it? ….. The answer is obvious enough, isn’t it? We lost. That’s all.”

    Note: the author and the main characters are from Hiroshima, hence the title, the "citadel", which refers to Hiroshima castle. There are frequent references to life in Hiroshima before the atomic bomb and the subsequent impact of the bomb on the fate of those individuals and the city.

  • Andrew

    I can't say I felt there was much going on with this book. I didn't find anything bad or good about it. It was just a rather plain war novel with a very short chronicle of the Hiroshima bombing, which didn't even seem to fit into the main story.

    If you haven't read Ibuse's
    Black Rain do so before you even think of reading this one.