Twenty-Four Eyes

Twenty Four Eyes is a deeply pacifist Japanese novel based on the perversion and inhumanity of modern war. Set on Shodoshima, a small island in the Inland Sea, and covering a twenty–year period embracing prewar, war–time, and early postwar Japan, it centers on the relationship between a primary school teacher, Miss Oishi, and the twelve island children (the twenty–four eyes of the title) in her first class.

In the course of the novel, Miss Oishi faces problems of acceptance by the children a...