Contemporary Japanese Literature

Come cambierebbe il mondo? E come cambie-rebbe la mia vita? Se io scomparissi dal mondo, intendo. Il mondo non cambierebbe di una virgola e tutto andrebbe avanti allo stesso modo, giorno dopo giorno? Sí, lo so, starai pensando che si tratta di doman-de assurde e che sto delirando. Ma devi credermi. Quello che sto per scriverti mi è successo ne-gli ultimi sette giorni. Davvero. Sette giorni a dir poco pazzeschi. Ah, dimenticavo: tra non molto morirò. Quindi, come e perché siamo arrivati a questo punto? È proprio quello che sto per raccontarti. Sarà una lettera molto lunga, ti avverto. Però vorrei che mi seguissi fino alla fine. Anche perché questa è la prima e l'ultima vol-ta che ti scrivo una lettera. Sarà il mio testamento. T_kawamura_genki_se_i-gatti_scomparissero_dal_mondo.indd 3

Nakagami Kenji (1946-1992) is one of the most famous writers of contemporary Japan, though his works have been scarcely translated into other languages. Of the many topics in his literature, the current paper will focus on his relationship with Latin America, a region he was never able to visit, yet one that strongly convoked him. In order to explain such a relationship, we will coin the term imagined frontier, understanding through it the global connections of regions despite their actual geography and thanks to the imaginative and literary activity of their local writers. In the first section, the paper will summarize and comment on Nakagami s critique of the concept monogatari (tale, narrative), one of his most important contributions to Japanese literature which simultaneously made him turn his attention to regions in the world outside of Japan. In the second section, the paper will delve deeper into the author s biography during the beginnings of the s and will bring together Nakagami s allusions and references to Latin America, as well as the applications that he made of such connection in a quest to develop and define his image and profile as a writer in an international level. In the third section, the paper will analyze Nakagami s novel Sennen no yuraku (Pleasures of a Thousand Years), in which he used literary techniques associated with Latin American writers and explicitly utilized Latin America as a setting for two of the novel s chapters. In general terms, the paper show Nakagami s complex interpretations of Latin America and the way in which his understanding of the region was translated into his novel.

Hayashi Mariko is one of the most famous Japanese writer, essayist and
blogger. She made her debut in 1982 with the collection Run run o katte
ouchi ni kaerō (Let’s Buy Happiness and Go Back Home) and in 1985 she
won the Naoki Prize with the short novel Saishūbin ni maniaeba (If I Catch
the Last Flight) and Kyōto made (To Kyoto). Her work covers a wide range
of genres and styles, ranging from essays, biographies of historical female
fi gures to stories of everyday life of modern women. Her novels tell the
stories of female fi gures who have real desires, wishes and ambitions, and
though they are diff erent in their attitudes they share the same will and need
of self-achievement. Great attention should be focused on one particular
point in Hayashi’s works: the autobiographical element. Most of her heroines
resemble herself, and the reader has the impression of reading Hayashi’s
adventures as she grows up, her opinion always lurking in the background.
So, we read the stories of real women, with whom one could easily sympathize.
Th us, with the introduction of the autobiographical element from the
very fi rst novel, it can be said that Hayashi presents herself as a new model
of woman, that we can compare to the everywoman who will appear in the
literary world only ten years after her debut thanks to the genre of the Chick
Lit. Th is presentation aims to show the similarities between Hayashi’s women
and the post-feminist everywoman of the Chick Lit.

The manner in which manga can reflect and influence readers’ gender perceptions has been a frequently researched issue. This article is an attempt to consider those questions through language, a traditionally less-examined element, in order to shed new light on how male and female characters are used in manga. To do so, I use a linguistic corpus of ten popular shōjo-manga and shōnen-manga to look at (1) how much of the text found in speech bubbles was spoken by male and female characters; and (2) how many characters were seen. With regards to approximately 80% of all text, the corpus shows that shōnen-manga are extremely skewed towards male characters, compared to shōjo-manga, which is more balanced between female and male characters. While many more characters appear in shōnen-manga, the majority are male. Furthermore, only two female characters in all of the shōnen-manga series account for more than 10% of text, whereas all the shōjo-manga have male characters accounting for over 12%.
In examining why this might be, I suggest that the focus on interpersonal relationships – including both friendship and romance – in shōjo-manga may lead to a smaller cast of characters and better balance between male and female characters. However, with authors usually writing for their own gender, I also maintain that it is related to differences in the roles of women and men in Japanese society. These distributions also have an impact on characterization itself, particularly in regards to the use of gendered speech patterns. With insight from Kinsui’s yakuwari-go, or role-playing language (2003), I specifically argue that the results predict that shōnen-manga will use more stereotypical speech, particularly in depicting female characters. In offering supporting evidence for this hypothesis, I suggest that this may affect how readers engage with the characters, thus creating different types of reading experiences within the genres. Through this discussion, it will become clear that linguistic data can shed light into how characters are manipulated in manga on a variety of levels, thus appealing to its potential as a legitimate and unique approach to manga research.

Keywords: manga, language, gender, characters, corpus linguistics

HITORI BIYORI (translated both as A Good Day for Being Alone and Being Alone), the second novel by Aoyama Nanae and the recipient of the prestigious 136th Akutagawa prize, follows the year in the life of Chizu Mizuta as she struggles to enter adulthood. It is a narrative that could be any other ‘coming of age’ story if it was not for the character of her elderly landlady. Together, the young woman and the old lady symbolise a meeting of two pervasive tropes of marginalised femininity in Japanese society: the shôjo and the yamamba, (young woman and the mountain witch). Both of these figures have been extensively discussed in previous scholarship, however, few studies look at the two in tandem, or recognise the possibility for such a nexus. By comparing literary and folkloric accounts of the yamamba with Hitori Biyori this article examines the relationship between Chizu and her landlady in terms of these two figures, the shôjo and yamamba, whilst also exploring how the relationship impacts on Chizu’s identity, personal growth and entrance into adulthood.

The Japanese female literature in the new millennium explores the different uses of technology. Some writers have used digital technologies such the internet to surf the web’s possibilities, others have tried to write in the form of the keitai shōsetsu, novels for the cell-phone, or have used devices as if they were prosthesis of their protagonists’ bodies. When the writer Murata Sayaka appears on the literary scene, she presents what may seem a dystopic use of technology: in her stories, the majority of which is settled in a future Japan, technology allows the commodification of the human body, eternal life and resurrection or the presence of cyborg-like humans, as well as it displaces our current values of love, sex and family – which appear to be extinguished. This presentation proposes a textual analysis of a selected corpus, arguing how technology in these novels should not be seen as a dystopic tool but, instead, as a useful means to reach and guarantee gender equality in society. The works will be explored from a multiple perspective, merging feminist and gender studies and literary criticism.

　文化庁の「平成１９年度国語に関する世論調査」で約４５％の回答者がマンガを若者言葉に影響をもたらすものとして挙げたように，絵と言葉からなるマンガは一種の言語的メディアと一般に認知されている。しかしながら，マンガ研究の多くは視覚的要素に焦点が置かれていることが多い。ここでは，通常関心の払われることの少ない言語的要素に焦点を定めたい。
　まず，今日一般的になっているマンガにおける文字情報の活用法は決して古くから定着したわけではない。竹内オサム（2005年）によると，現在一般的な文字テキストの多くはストーリー・マンガの発達と共に現れたものであり，ストーリーの時空間的な展開を表現をするのに重要な役割を演じている。また，Rommens（2000年）のように，文字を追わずにページだけを追っていくという読み方が，マンガの読み方として主流だとする主張が多いが，読者はまず文字情報を追う方が優先されるという主張もある。実際，読者に自分が目で何を追っているのかをマジックペンで記してもらうという実験的調査によれば殆ど全員がまず台詞を追っていることが分かった（Allen＆Ingulsrud：2009年）。
　さらに，読者が，マンガを言語的メディアとして受け止めていることも重要である（上の文化庁調査など）。本研究においては，マンガにおける言語の役割に焦点を当てることにより，マンガがメディアとしてどのように機能しているのか観察する。その第一歩として，発表者が作成したコーパスを活用し，基本的な文字テキストの統計を明らかにしながら，文字テキストの分類と分布を観察する。

Una riduzione del testo è stata presentata durante una conferenza organizzata dalla British Association of Japanese Studies (BAJS) presso la BAJS Japan Branch and Hokkaido University (Research Faculty of Media and Communication) il 29 luglio 2016.

Original source: http://repository.tufs.ac.jp/bitstream/10108/86243/1/lacs022007.pdf

Motherhood and the mother/ daughter relationship are recurrent themes in researches about Japanese literature. On the other hand, not much has been said about fathers, to the extent that some critics have argued that the absence of the father could be considered the tendency of Japanese fiction in 2012, as well as a prophecy about the future of Japanese society. However, are really fathers absent from contemporary literature? In this paper I will analyze the role of the father in Kakuta Mitsuyo's works, focusing in particular on Boku wa kimi no oniisan (1996) and Kiddonappu Tsuā (1998). Kakuta Mitsuyo has been writing fiction centered on the family, focusing particularly on the mother-daughter relationship. The novels examined in this paper, narrated from the daughter's point of view, focused instead on the father/ daughter relationship: thus, they give us the chance to analyze the “Japanese modern family” in Kakuta's works from a different perspective. In this paper I will focus on the way these works reveal that the “collapse of patriarchy” has caused a change within the home, giving fathers and daughters the chance to build up a new relationship, and new definitions for the “modern Japanese family”.

(The paper is written in Italian and traslated in English by Deidre Corrignam as the politics of the volume wanted)
Kirino Natsuo, Hayashi Mariko, Kawakami Hiromi, Matsuura Rieko, Uchida Shungicu, Taguchi Randy, Tawada Yōko, Miyabe Miyuki, Ogawa Yōko, Ekuni Kaori, Yoshimoto Banana, Kakuta Mitsuyo, Sakuraba Kazuki, Kashimada Maki, Kawakami Mieko, Murata Sayaka, Kanehara Hitomi, Wataya Risa: sono solo alcune delle scrittrici giapponesi tradotte e in procinto di essere tradotte in Italia, a dimostrazione della grande popolarità della narrativa contemporanea femminile che arriva dal Sol
Levante. Quando si parla di letteratura giapponese oggi, infatti, risulta assai difficile discuterne senza prendere in considerazione le numerose autrici il cui insieme di opere costituisce il corpus denominato
“letteratura femminile”.... - Il presente contributo intende esplorare le dinamiche di integrazione ed esclusione che hanno portato in epoca contemporanea all'affermazione di nuove soggettività femminili in letteratura e alla decostruzione dell'etichetta discriminatoria "joryū sakka".

La detective fiction ha sempre rappresentato un luogo privilegiato per la riflessione sulla vita moderna, in particolare metropolitana. Ma, per il fatto che implica un coinvolgimento con il lato più sordido della vita, è stata spesso considerata un genere non appropriato per una donna. Eppure, negli ultimi quindici anni, si è assistito in Giappone a un vero e proprio boom di giovani e meno giovani autrici di mistery, le cui opere combinano il poliziesco tradizionale con l’hard boiled, filtrandoli attraverso una nuova sensibilità riguardo al ruolo delle donne all'interno della società contemporanea. Non solo, ma la struttura narrativa della detective story ritorna anche in romanzi, sempre firmati da donne, che non possono tecnicamente essere considerati gialli: forse perché il nucleo della letteratura femminile ancora oggi è una ricerca, la ricerca del sé, o di una nuova, più forte e assertiva, identità. Fra le scrittrici più interessanti, sicuramente Kirino Natsuo e Miyabe Miyuki, entrambe sensibili alle tematiche a sfondo sociale: il consumismo, la discriminazione sul luogo di lavoro, la violenza e la molestia sessuale, il ruolo della donna nel Giappone contemporaneo. E, soprattutto, l’isolamento. Una solitudine alla quale si aggiunge la difficoltà di affermarsi in una società che ancora vede le donne come oggetti sessuali, o come madri. Queste scrittrici sanno avvalersi del potenziale critico del genere per portare all’attenzione del pubblico problematiche associate alla condizione femminile, servendosene come di una sorta di lente attraverso la quale filtrare questioni culturali e problemi che possono essere negoziati - se non risolti - come parte della narrativa di investigazione.

Un omicidio che reclama giustizia da vent’anni. Una catena di misteri e violenze. Un enigma diabolico per l’ispettore Sasagaki.

Doveva essere un giorno di riposo per l'ispettore Sasagaki, invece è l'inizio di un caso inestricabile che finirà per ossessionarlo per molto, molto tempo. Il corpo di Yosuke Kirihara, stimato proprietario di un banco di pegni, viene rinvenuto in un edificio abbandonato. Sdraiato su un divano, i capelli composti, l'abito elegante, come addormentato, non fosse per quella chiazza di sangue in mezzo al torace. I sospetti ricadono di volta in volta sui familiari, poi sui clienti del negozio, infine su una presunta amante, ma più il cerchio si stringe più la polizia brancola nel buio: non ci sono prove schiaccianti e gli indiziati hanno alibi che si sostengono a vicenda. E, come una maledizione, tutti coloro che hanno a che fare con il caso Kirihara finiscono per morire in strane circostanze. Tutti tranne il figlio della vittima, Ryo, un ragazzo cupo e impenetrabile che vive arricchendosi con traffici illegali, e la figlia dell'amante di Kirihara, Yukiho,studentessa brillante e di una bellezza mozzafiato.

L'estratto qui riportato è scaricabile gratuitamente dal sito della casa editrice:
http://www.giunti.it/libri/narrativa/sotto-il-sole-di-mezzanotte/

Penelitian mengenai keluarga dan permasalahannya sudah lazim dilakukan dengan menggunakan berbagai objek termasuk karya sastra. Begitu pula penelitian mengenai keluarga single parent. Namun belum ditemukan hasil penelitian mengenai keluarga single parent yang objeknya adalah karya sastra. Sementara pada saat ini jumlah keluarga single parent terus meningkat setiap tahunnya seperti di Jepang. Fenomena keluarga di Jepang termasuk keluarga single parent sudah dijadikan tema novel yang ditulis oleh novelis perempuan Jepang, Ogawa Yoko.

Penelitian ini adalah penelitian kualitatif dengan objek novel yang ditulis oleh Ogawa Yoko berjudul Kohaku No Matataki. Pendekatan sosiologi sastra digunakan untuk penelitian ini. Sedangkan metodenya adalah metode coding yaitu memberi tag pada objek mengenai setiap hal yang berkaitan dengan keluarga, anggota keluarga dan interaksi di antara mereka. Data yang terkumpul kemudian dikategorikan lalu dianalisis sehingga dapat diketahui bagaimana gambaran keluarga single parent dan permasalahannya yang tergambar di dalam novel Kohaku No Matataki..

Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa pada keluarga single parent yang kepala keluarganya adalah seorang ibu, terdapat kekurangan finansial, ketidakstabilan emosi pada ibu, dan kehilangan rasa aman dari dunia luar sehingga cendrung menutup diri. Sementara anak-anak yang hanya patuh pada perintah ibu yang monoton pada satu titik mengalami pemberontakan dari dalam diri mereka sehingga mereka lari meninggalkan ibu.

Kata kunci: Keluarga single parent, Keluarga Jepang, Ogawa Yoko, Kohaku No Matataki

本論文は、筆者が作成したコーパスを用い、吹き出しの外に書かれる手書きの台詞・考え事・コメントの分布と用法を観察することで、マンガにおける言葉の役割を再確認することを目指すものである。吹き出しの外に書かれる手書きの台詞・考え事・コメントは、吹き出し内の台詞等と類似しているが、視覚的環境・登場人物との関係・物語上の役割という３点において異なっており、また、明らかにするように、少女マンガと少年マンガとで唯一明確な差を示している文字情報の分類である。その理由として、難波（2001）が指摘した少女マンガにおける作者と読者の変化をその理由として挙げ、吹き出し外の手書きの文字情報を用いることで、作者が異なる読み方を提供する可能性を考察する。このように、マンガの言葉を観察することによって得られる情報は、マンガを様々な観点から理解することに貢献することが期待できることを訴える。

Yaoi/BL Fandom Survey (only takes 10 mins to complete): https://leeds.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/blfandomsurvey
Male–male sexuality is the central trope of Boys’ Love (BL) manga with stories tending to revolve around a central uke-seme (‘bottom’–‘top’) pair. Although focused on men, BL is produced and consumed primarily by women. This article presents, from an anglophone British perspective, analysis of age-stratified male–male romance – paederasty – as portrayed in BL. My corpus consists of 234 commercially-translated original Japanese BL manga stories, created by 100 different mangaka (author-artists), published commercially in English between 2003 and 2012. A total of 68 (30%) of these stories were identified as involving agestratified relationships, eight of which were selected for detailed analysis. Seven were selected for typicality: Waru (2007) by Yukari Hashida deemed the most typical. Fangs (2008) by Hiroki Kusumoto was also included in analysis as the most atypical age-stratified story in order to test the robustness of identified patterns. I argue that that, from an anglophone perspective, the characteristic themes of age-stratified BL map surprising well onto the eroticised intra-familial dynamics of Freud and the intra- and inter-familial economics of Lévi-Strauss. The patterns identified are evidenced and discussed under the following headings: the mother identified son, the doubly divested man, the castrated father, men on the market and the mother with the phallus. These themes help build and substantiate my argument that age-stratified BL might work, within an anglophone context at least, as a feminist critique of patriarchy through the mechanism of phallic divestiture.

Análise literária da obra “Kafka à beira-mar”, do premiado escritor japonês Haruki Murakami. Através de uma leitura mais aprofundada, é possível a observação de questões que não poderiam ser notadas em uma primeira leitura. Características do autor, especificidades da composição, questões culturais e amostras de intertextualidade são esmiuçadas durante esse processo de interpretação.
“Kafka à beira-mar” é uma viagem através do tempo e da História, com passagem por situações fantásticas e paradas obrigatórias no campo da psiquiatria.

This paper explores how different ways of articulating the idea of the body in contemporary Japanese literature are inscribed within a paradigm of criticism against ongoing modes of economic violence. The goal is to explore three ways of articulating the body represented in these works: change and adaptation to neoliberal demands in the case of Murata Sayaka's Konbini ningen (Convenience Store Woman), a quest for empowerment in Kawakami Mieko's Natsu monogatari (Breasts and Eggs), and the invisibilization of poverty in Yū Miri's JR Ueno eki kōen guchi (Tokyo Ueno Station).

Female friendship is often regarded as temporary and fragile. In particular, because a homosocial bond (an intimate same-sex relationship that is neither romantic nor sexual) is usually identified in terms of male bonding, friendship among women has been largely invisible and considered impossible. Thus, compared with stories of male friendship, stories of friendship between women are rare.
In Japanese contemporary literature, Kakuta Mitsuyo explored the possibilities of female bonds in her fiction. In Woman on the Other Shore (2004), she portrayed the possibilities of female friendship through two stories: the plot develops as it alternates between the narration of Sayoko and Aoi’s friendship and that of Aoi’s past and her friendship with Nanako
during high school. Focusing on these alternating narrations, I analyze the friendships between (1) young girls, (2) mamatomo (mom friends), and (3) the women characterized as makeinu (loser dogs) and kachiinu (winner dogs). This paper seeks to investigate how female bonding is controlled within a system structured upon homosocial bonds exclusive to men and to identify the possibilities of female friendship within this system as depicted in Kakuta Mitsuyo’s text.

This paper examines the father-daughter relationship in Kurahashi Yumiko’s fiction, focusing on “The Long Passage of Dreams” and “To Die at the Estuary.” Though these two novellas are not direct rewritings of Greek tragedies and Noh plays, nevertheless, through an analysis of references and allusions to previous texts, they can be read as rewritings of the “master plot of the father-daughter story.” Therefore, the aim of this paper is to analyze the meaning of rewriting this master plot, and the role of the reader in cooperating with texts replete with intertextual frames. I focus particularly on the links between Kurahashi’s texts, Oedipus at Colonus, and the Noh plays (Kagekiyo, Kurozuka, Nomori, and Tamakazura), and examine the textual strategies Kurahashi uses in order to challenge the master plot of the father-daughter story present in both Greek tragedies and Japanese classics.

COLECCIÓN COLORES PRIMARIOS

La colección Colores Primarios ha sido creada con un fin estrictamente cultural, en el marco del respeto a los derechos humanos, en particular atención a las personas con discapacidad, adultos mayores y grupos sociales vulnerables. Los libros son de distribución gratuita. Está prohibida su venta o lucro que se pudiera generar con la misma. Lo anterior en los términos del artículo 148 de la Ley Federal de Derechos de Autor.


NANAO SAKAKI (1923-2008)

Poeta, activista ambiental y autodenominado anarquista antropológico. Nació en la localidad de Satsuma Sendai, en Kyūshū, al sur de Japón en 1923.  Durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial fue operador de radar en una base aérea cercana a Nagasaki. Al finalizar la guerra se trasladó a Tokio, donde comenzó una vida como artista itinerante en los barrios bajos de la ciudad y fundó una “Academia para vagabundos”. En los años sesenta, su estilo de artista-vagabundo inspiró la subcultura de los jóvenes artistas y autodenominados vagabundos por convicción o fūten del barrio de Shinjuku. En 1967 junto con los poetas Yamao Sansei y Nagasawa Tetsuo, entre otros, fundó La Tribu (Buzoku). Este grupo reunió a jóvenes soñadores que buscaban formas de vida alternativas a la cultura del consumo, a la vez que indagaban en las raíces profundas, ni elitistas ni militaristas, de Japón. El grupo fundó tres comunas en Japón por las que transitaron cientos de jóvenes que buscaban una vida alternativa al capitalismo. Una de estas comunas fue el llamado Ashram del Baniano, en la remota isla de Suwanose, al sur de Kyūshū.
Nanao recorrió varias veces Japón a pie, desde Hōkkaido a Kagoshima y también hacia las alejadas islas Ryūkyū, es decir, de norte a sur, y viceversa. Sus pasos lo llevaron a encontrarse con algunos poetas viajeros de la llamada generación beatnik: Gary Sny­der, Joanne Kyger y Allen Ginsberg, con quienes estableció una profunda amistad. En la década de los ochenta y noventa Nanao recorrió Australia, Europa, los Estados Unidos y el desierto del Pinacate en la frontera con Sonora, México. En 1990 escribió una bitácora de su exploración por Norteamérica titulada Cactus del viento en el desierto.
Nanao se internaba, con una mochila al hombro, a vivir largos periodos en galpones, cuevas y casas abandonadas. Viajó visitando a sus amigos y participando en recitales de poesía hasta poco tiempo antes de su muerte en una villa montañosa del Japón rural en 2008.
Nanao fue un poeta bilingüe y también traductor del poeta Kobayashi Issa al inglés. Sus poemarios, en japonés e inglés, que cantan a los seres vivos de Japón y el mundo, se caracterizan por el uso del verso libre, su profunda compasión budista, su admiración de las sabidurías indígenas y el desarrollo de una conciencia ecológica planetaria. La crítica literaria lo considera un poeta itinerante en la misma senda de grandes poetas como Saigyō, Bashō, Ryōkan e Issa, y un exponente de la literatura ecológica cosmopolita. Sus poemas han sido traducidos al checo, finlandés, francés, italiano, y coreano.
La presente traducción se basa en su libro Kokoperi no ashiato, ココペリの足あと 2010 (Las huellas de Kokopelli) publicado por la editorial Shichōsha. Los textos correspondientes a su diario de viaje “Cactus del viento en el desierto” pueden leerse como pequeñas postales ecopoéticas que Nanao escribió retomando un género antiguo de la literatura japonesa, el compendio o fudoki. En cuanto a los poemas, he decidido incluir algunas notas para introducir al lector a la visión profunda reflejada en la claridad de su poesía.

A critical reading of Murata Sayaka's Shōmetsu sekai 消滅世界 (2015) Anna Specchio
Full paper available at:
https://www.ojs.unito.it/index.php/kervan/article/view/5060

Murata Sayaka is a controversial story writer who questions Japanese current values of love, sex, and the nuclear family, pivoting on issues like gender and power. In her novel Shōmetsu sekai (Dwindling World, 2015), she depicts a parallel Japan where sex has disappeared, and modern birth control technology is used by the population. Thus, the novel has been labelled as dystopic, and Murata's readers think of her literary world as disturbing. In the Shōmetsu sekai scenario, gender-based social differences disappear for the community wellbeing, and the new biotechnology is used to improve social conditions. Therefore, should it be considered simply a dystopian work of fiction? By approaching the text from the perspective of gender, feminist and posthuman studies, and contextualizing it within Japanese society and Murata Sayaka's literary framework, I argue that it is possible to consider Shōmetsu sekai as an example of utopic feminist (or LGBTQ+) work of fiction and that the neutralisation of sex as we know it today should be intended as a means of social improvement.

Sakamura Shimin (坂村真民 1909 - 2006) was the pen name of a Japanese Buddhist poet whose given name was Takashi. His poems speak of a universal way of living in harmony and giving sympathy to ones fellow beings. He is said to have been a healing poet. Sakamura was born in Arao City in the Kumamoto Prefecture of Japan. After going to Kumamoto Prefecture Tamana Junior High School, he graduated from Kogakkan University, a private school connected with Shintō in Ise, Mie prefecture, Japan.
He moved to Tobe, a town located in Iyo District, Ehime Prefecture, Japan and set up a residence he called "Tanpopodo" (Dandilion Hall). It was his daily routine to get up at 1 o'clock every morning to offer an early prayer at the nearby Shigenobu River. Many of his poems are easy to understand and everyone from elementary school students to business workers loved them. His poem “If you pray, flowers will bloom” is particularly well loved and it has been translated into many languages.

Kakuta Mitsuyo’s novels often depict fathers who use physical and
psychological violence to subjugate their families and strictly control
their daughters. In this paper I will explore the abusive father-daughter
relationships and the (im)possible escape from the father’s control depicted in “God of the evening” (1992) and “My father’s ball” (2006).

This presentation inspects the recent editorial production in contemporary Japanese architecture, screening the contents of essays written during the last decade (2007-2010) by four selected authors, where a recurring interplay with nature related subjects is noticeable. This analysis highlights the diversity and intrinsic individual originality of these books, relating their specific approach with the overall work themes of each architect, and discussing the existence of a common ground among them. While investigating their philosophical and conceptual stand-points the paper also attempts to contextualize these discourses both within the larger context of architectural theory, particularly of early post-modern ecological approaches and of sustain-able construction account, and in the milieu of Japan, where an imprinted notion of harmonious coexistence between nature and culture has been long mystified from abroad and from within. Trying to assess its motives and influence, and finally questioning the existence of a paradox amidst the multiple existing forms of para-environmental architectural practice, it is argued whether these do manage to communicate ecoliteracy with its consumer and professional audiences, highlighting on the other hand architecture’s inherent traits, as visual, perceptive and cognitive discipline, with a disruptive capacity to provoke paradigm change

Basic Japanese: A Grammar and Workbook comprises an accessible reference grammar and related exercises in a single volume. This book presents 25 grammar units, covering the core material which students would expect to encounter in their first year of learning Japanese. Divided into two parts, the first outlines fundamental components of Japanese including the writing system, pronunciation, word order, particles and conjugation patterns, while the second builds on this foundation by introducing basic grammatical patterns organized by the task they achieve. Grammar points are followed by contextualized examples and exercises which allow students to reinforce and consolidate their learning. Key features include: • clear, accessible format • many useful language examples • transliteration of all examples • jargon-free explanations of grammar • abundant exercises with full answer key • subject index. Basic Japanese is suitable both for class use and independent study, making it an ideal grammar reference and practice resource for both beginners and students with some knowledge of the language.

Through a close reading of contemporary Japanese novelist Murakami Haruki’s accounts of his travels in Southern Europe, the United States, and Australia, this article analyses the ways in which this author uses travel writing to promote his self-image as a cosmopolitan and culturally sensitive writer. At the same time, examining the complex dynamics of identification and differentiation at play in the narratives, it highlights the texts’ potential to generate critical reflections on both Japanese and global cultural and social formations. By looking at Murakami’s distinctive combination of self- promotion and cultural critique, the article’s overarching goal is to complicate the current understanding of the genre travel writing and its colonial legacy.

Nanao Sakaki (Kagoshima, 1923 – Nagano, 2008) was a Japanese wanderer poet and environmental activist from the second half of the XX century and related to the north American poets Gary Snyder, Allen Ginsberg, Joanne Kyger and Gary Lawless among others. In 1967 along with the poets Nagasawa Tetsuo, Yamao Sansei, Katō Mamoru and a group of dreamers he founded the "The Tribe" (Buzoku, 部族) community that hold communes in Tokio, Nagano and the remote island of Suwanose.
This thesis is based on the ecocritical approach to explore the relationship between ecological consciousness and poetry. To bring closer Nanao’s poetics to the reader this thesis is divided in four chapters. The first and second are a recount of the biography of the author and the emergence of the modern ecological consciousness among Japanese writers, as part of the history of the relations between nature and literature. History in which excel poets as Saigyō, Bashō e Issa, and more recently Miyazawa, Kaneko e Ishimure, among others. The third and fourth chapters focus on a “entropic” ecopoetic model about ecological consciousness, and on the ecopoetic strategies of Nanao. I take as ecocritical case studies: the relationship between poetry and environmental activism to protect the Yoshino river, the presence of the Buddhist supernatural world in the poem “Venerate Three Treasures” that opposes against the Nuclear Energy Central “Monju” and the restoring of the traveler figure in his travel compilation (fudoki 風土記) through North America and the references to the Kokopelli icon. It is included a selection of photographs from the Gary Snyder and Nanao Sakaki archives in the Special Collection from the Davis University Library in California. [Collection number D-50 y D-475], and an annex with a selection of Nanao’s poems translated into Spanish, accompanied by personal notes resulting of my research travel to Japan in 2016.

Keywords: Ecocriticism, Ecopoetics, Poetry, Nature, Japan


Resumen

Nanao Sakaki (Kagoshima, 1923 – Nagano, 2008), fue un poeta caminante y activista medio ambiental japonés de la segunda mitad del siglo XX, relacionado con los poetas norteamericanos Gary Snyder, Allen Ginsberg, Joanne Kyger y Gary Lawless, entre otros. En 1967, junto a los poetas Nagasawa Tetsuo, Yamao Sansei, Katō Mamoru y otros soñadores, fundó la comunidad “La Tribu” (Buzoku 部族) que mantuvo comunas en Tokio, Nagano y la remota isla de Suwanose.
Esta tesis se fundamenta en el enfoque ecocrítico para explorar el tema de la conciencia ecológica y su relación con la poesía. Para acercar la poética de Nanao al lector, la tesis se divide en cuatro capítulos: el primero y segundo son un recuento de la biografía del autor y el despertar de la conciencia ecológica moderna entre los escritores japoneses como parte de la historia de las relaciones entre la naturaleza y la literatura, en la que sobresalen poetas como Saigyō, Bashō e Issa, y más recientemente Miyazawa, Kaneko e Ishimure, entre otros; el tercer y cuarto capítulos se enfocan en un modelo ecopoético “entrópico” sobre la conciencia ecológica, y las estrategias ecopoéticas de Nanao. Se toman como casos de estudio ecocríticos la relación entre poesía y activismo medioambiental para proteger el río Yoshino, la presencia del mundo sobrenatural budista en el poema “Honrar profundamente los Tres Tesoros”, que manifiesta su oposición a la Central de Energía Nuclear “Monju”, y la recuperación de la figura del viajero en su compendio de viaje (fudoki 風土記) por Norteamérica y en las referencias al a la figura del Kokopelli. Se incluye una selección de fotografías provenientes de los archivos de Gary Snyder y Nanao Sakaki en resguardo de la Universidad de Davis, California [Números de la colección: D-50 y D-475], y un anexo con una selección de poemas de Nanao traducidos al español, acompañados de notas personales resultado de mi viaje de investigación a Japón en 2016.

Palabras clave: Ecocrítica, Ecopoética, Poesía, Naturaleza, Japón

Perché l’idea di “Occidente” è egemone nel Giappone moderno e contemporaneo? Perché l’Italia vi riscuote da due decenni una popolarità forse senza eguali nel mondo? Se è vero che parlare degli altri significa anche parlare di se stessi, allora indagare l’altro occidentale e italiano in Giappone ci può aiutare a esplorare l’identità culturale giapponese in modo inconsueto e critico, ripensando sia il Giappone che l’Italia. In questo libro l’autore studia una grande varietà di esempi di questo intreccio di identità, tra i quali la narrativa storica ambientata in Italia di una scrittrice notissima in Giappone, Shiono Nanami, impiegando metodi e strumenti dell’imagologia e degli studi culturali e postcoloniali. Il risultato è un decentramento prospettico: uno spazio aperto all’interrogativo infinito circa la propria identità mediata dallo specchio (s)confinante dell’altro

Due to unprecedented opportunities of global and cultural exchanges in the past decades, fragments of our past go beyond borders, nationalities and cultural differences. Contemporary popular culture is an important vector to convey them, even on the other side of the Earth, where European’s past can become the future inspiration for foreign writers and artists. And Japan is no exception. It has started to be filled with European images from the past, whether it is in the medieval-fantasy backgrounds of video games or in highly praised literary works. Japanese popular literature participates in this movement, assimilating and reorganizing European cultural elements, before sending back to us those same fragments, deformed and/or revitalised.

Amidst the various motifs extracted from our History and used by Japanese authors, one has caught our attention: the Vikings and their expedition to Vinland, in Yukimura Makoto’s manga Vinland Saga. Far from presenting stereotyped images of simple-minded and brutal Norse warriors, this historical work offers a new and foreign approach of Thorfinn Karselfni’ story and the two Sagas of the Icelanders mentioning him, the Grœnlendinga saga and Eiríks saga rauða. In this article, I study how Yukimura Makoto reconstructs the Icelandic’s Sagas and develops its historical context, in order to create his own rewriting of this famous Norse cultural element. By doing so, I argue that he provides the Japanese readers – and by ricochet European ones – with a transcultural and revitalised Old Norse Literature and History in the 21st century.