Humanism

The beautiful woman Melé is a bar singer, her husband Chaka is out of work. The couple that lives in Bamako, the capital of Mali, is on the verge of breaking up... In the courtyard of the house, where they live together with other families, a trial court has been set up. African civil society spokesmen have taken proceedings against the World Bank and the IMF, whom they blame for Africa's woes... Amidst the pleas and the testimonies, life goes on in the courtyard. Chaka does not seem to be concerned by this novel Africa's desire to fight for its rights. More

Young Dr. Yasumoto returns to Edo following three years of medical training in Nagasaki. Believing he will become a physician to Shogunate, he is badly disillusioned to learn he must work in the poorly-financed Koishikawa Clinic, which is headed by a Dr. Niide, known to most as Red Beard. Everything in the clinic is repulsive to Yasumoto, and he becomes determined to get himself discharged: He drinks, refuses to wear medical attire; breaks every rule he can think of, in fact, including venturing to a prison-like room, forbidden to all but Red Beard himself, to observe a lovely mental More

A young man calls at Dr. Sanada’s clinic saying he has got his hand smashed by a closing door. This man, Matsunaga by name, is an outlaw of the locality looking after the affairs of his boss in this black market region. Though simple-hearted and naive by nature, he is one of the young men who have lost their aim in life in the post-war confusion of the world around him. Actually he has got wounded by a bullet in his fight with other ruffians. Dr. More