The most celebrated novel by Kobayashi Takiji, a defining voice of Japan's proletarian literature movement. First published in the journal Senki in 1929 (Showa 4). Set aboard a crab-processing factory ship, the novel follows a mass of workers ground down by brutal conditions as they gradually awaken to their collective identity, forge solidarity, and rise up in struggle. A landmark of proletarian literature, it has been translated into multiple languages and earned high international acclaim.
