UNESCO Part X

I read Osaragi's Retour au pays, a postwar novel in Japan published as a serial in 1948. It is quite simple in language and plot, and was wildly successful for its implications at a time of lack of freedom of expression. Whatever those implications where, however, went right over my head. I also read another of Machado de Assis' madness novels, called Philosopher or Dog? It was surprisingly conventional, for the subject matter.