lolita media library: Nobuko Yoshiya’s Flower Stories (花物語)

The cover art of the two volumes

General info

Hana Monogatari (花物語, “Flower Stories”) is a series of 52 short stories written by Nobuko Yoshiya (吉屋信子) between 1916 and 1924. Each story is named after a flower, and they explore a variety of relationships between women; many are about romantic friendships between young women.

How it’s related to lolita

This set of short stories predates lolita fashion by decades but has themes embodied by the aesthetic lolita fashion represents: a focus on the innocence, romance, nostalgia, and beauty of youth and the over-the-top romantic writing style. Flower Stories is a famous example of Class S literature, which was a forerunner to the shōjo genre of Japanese entertainment (comics and other media especially for school-age girls and young women), which in turn built the culture that lolita fashion grew from.

Partial English translation

One of the longer stories, “Yellow Rose”, was published in English as an e-book. It was translated by Sarah Frederick, a professor at Boston University. A review with excerpts can be read here.

Manga adaptation

Mari Ozawa (小沢真理) created a manga adaptation of the stories between 2011 and 2013. A compilation was published in 2014.

Comments

The various cover illustrations of the different editions are really fun to look at. :) The illustration for this edition is by an artist named Sayaka (さやか). So far I’ve read the first 3 stories and my favorite was “Lily of the Valley”. When I bought these books there were no English translations available but while writing this post, I found that there exists an English translation of “Yellow Rose” and may have to get it. Despite its noteworthiness in Japanese literature, I have a feeling translations are limited possibly due to anything resembling a positive depiction of same-sex relationships or things that could be construed as same-sex relationships being not widely socially tolerated in most English speaking countries until recently. However, as the tide slowly turns and this genre becomes considered more worthy of academic attention and study, I am sure more translations will be coming. I would love to check out the manga adaptation too!