Treacherous Women of Imperial Japan: Patriarchal Fictions, Patricidal Fantasies. By Helene Bowen Radakker

THIS BOOK is a thoroughly engrossing study of the issue of death as performance and political statement. It examines the death stories of two women, Kanno Suga (1881-1911) and Kaneko Fumiko (1903-1926). Both were charged with conspiring to assassinate the Emperor of the time. Suga was implicated in the Meiji High Treason Incident of 1910-11, ultimately dying at the hands of the State. Kaneko Fumiko was charged with trying to procure bombs for an attempt on the life of the Taisho Emperor and the Crown Prince. She was sentenced to death in March 1926, two days after she and Korean activist Pak Yeol, with whom she was charged, registered their marriage in prison. Although the sentence was commuted to life detention, Fumiko's death by suicide was reported inJuly of the same year. The focus ofRadekker's analysis is not the historical " events"