Abstract
During the period between 1936 and 1939, Japanese writers and critics in colonial Manchuria debated the notion of Manchurian literature, Manshū bungaku. In the journals Sakubun (Composition), Manshū rōman (Manchurian Novel), and Mtrnshū bungei nenkan (Manchuria Literary Arts Annual), Japanese literati discussed the possibilities of a new “literary tradition” and asked such questions as: what qualifies a work of literature as Mans hū bungaku? who can write Manchurian literature? in what language(s) should this literature be written? what are the goals of this literature? These efforts to codify and develop a discrete literary tradition not only encouraged reflection upon the relationship between literature and nationalism, but also explored the deeper resonances of the Japanese presence in Manchuria. Explicitly delineating the boundaries of Manchurian literature, these critics exerted their privilege as colonizers and laid claim to literary and physical territory in Manchukuo.
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Notes
For more on the invention of tradition, see Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, ed. The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992)
Stephen Vlastos, “Tradition: Past/Present Culture and Modern Japanese History”, in The Mirror of Modernity: Invented Traditions of Modern Japan, ed. Stephen Vlastos (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 1–16.
Haruo Shirane and Tomi Suzuki, eds., Inventing the Classics: Modernity, National Identity and Japanese Literature (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001).
Japan first developed its economic, industrial, and military presence in Manchuria in the period between 1904 and 1932. These years served as an important precursor in the eventual establishment of a puppet state in Manchuria in 1932. See Yoshihisa Tak Matsusaka, The Making of Japanese Manchuria, 1904–1932 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2001).
Joshua A. Fogel, “Yosano Akiko and her China Travelogue of 1928”, in Travels in Manchuria and Mongolia: A Feminist Poet from Japan Encounters Prewar China, trans. Joshua A. Fogel (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), 136.
Sōseki and the Yosanos were not the only writers to receive an invitation from the South Manchurian Railways. Other Japanese writers who traveled to Manchuria under Mantetsu sponsorship include poet and literary scholar Ōmachi Keigetsu, who described his impressions of Manchuria in his essays “Yuki no kitsurin” and “Ryojun no senseki;” Satomi Ton, whose Man-shi ikken portrayed his travels in China and Manchuria (1929–1930); and Shiga Naoya. Joshua A. Fogel, “Japanese Literary Travelers in Prewar China”, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 49.2 (December 1989): 575–602.
For more on Natsume Sōseki’s early works, see Van C. Gessel, Three Modern Novelists: Soseki, Tanizaki, Kawabata (Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1993)
Edwin McClellan, Two Japanese Novelists: Sōseki and Tōson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969)
Angela Yiu, Chaos and Order in the Works of Natsume Sōseki (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1998).
For more on Yosano Akiko, see Janine Beichman, Embracing the Firebird: Yosano Akiko and the Birth Of The Female Voice In Modern Japanese Poetry (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2002)
Laurel Rasplica Rodd, “Yosano Akiko and the Taishō Debate over the ‘New Woman,’” in Recreating Japanese Women, 1600–1945, ed. Gail Lee Bernstein (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 175–198.
Despite the title of the work, Sōseki barely mentions Korea and, in fact, remained in Manchuria throughout his journey. Critics have surmised that this lacuna resulted from persistent stomach ailments or the increasing anti-Japanese sentiment in Korea during that period. Kawamura Minato, “’Teikoku’ no Sōseki”, SōsekiKenkyū 5 (1995): 28–38.
Beongcheon Yu, Natsume Sōseki (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1969), 90–91.
Inger Sigrun Brodey, “Introduction”, in Rediscovering Natsume Sōseki, trans. Inger Sigrun Brodey and Sammy I. Tsunematsu (Kent: Global Oriental, 2000), 22.
Yoshihisa Tak Matsusaka, The Making of Japanese Manchuria, 1904–1932 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2001), 414.
Louise Young, Japan’s Total Empire: Manchuria and the Culture of Wartime Imperialism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 314.
Steve Rabson, “Yosano Akiko on War: To Give One’s Life or Not: A Question of Which War”, Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese 25.1 (April 1991): 45–74.
Stefan Tanaka, Japan’s Orient: Rendering Pasts into History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995).
David Spurr, The Rhetoric of Empire: Colonial Discourse in Journalism, Travel Writing, and Imperial Administration (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993), 16–17
Elleke Boehmer, Colonial and Postcolonial Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 44.
For an in-depth discussion of the Manchurian Crisis, see Sandra Wilson, The Manchurian Crisis and Japanese Society, 1931–33 (London and New York: Routledge, 2002)
Other travel writings on Manchukuo from this period include Shimaki Kensaku’s Manshū kikō (Tokyo: Sōgensha, 1940)
Haruyama Yukio, Manshū fūbutsushi (Tokyo: Seikatsusha, 1940)
Kawamura Minato, “’Manshū bungaku’ kenkyū no genjō”, in Shokuminchi to bungaku, ed. Nihon shakai bungakkai (Tokyo: Orijin shuppan sentaa, 1993), 129–130.
Ozaki Hotsuki, Kindai bungaku no shōkon: Kyūshokuminchi bungakuron (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1991), 274–277.
In a discussion of continental literature (tairiku bungaku), Itagaki Naoko identified the specific genre of development literature (kaitaku bungaku), which addressed the promotion of Japanese emigration to Manchuria for agricultural purposes. Itagaki Naoko, Jihenka no bungaku (Tokyo: Daiichi shoin, 1941), 91–94.
Furukawa Tetsujirō, “1937-nen Manshū bundan no kaiko”, Manshū bungei nenkan 2 (1938): 75.
For more on the Japan Romantic School, see Kevin M. Doak, Dreams of Difference: The Japan Romantic School und the Crisis of Modernity (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1994).
Okada Hideki, Bungaku ni miru ‘Munshukoku’no isō (Tokyo: Kenbun shuppan, 2000).
Nishimura Shin’ichirō, “Bungei hyōronkai no gaiken”, Manshū Bungei Nenkan 2 (1938): 1–4.
Furukawa Tetsujirō, “Manshū bungaku zakkō”, Manshū bungei nenkan 3 (1939): 75.
Jō Ōsu, “Manshū bungaku no seishin”, Manshū Bungei Nenkan 2 (1938): 25–29.
Prasenjit Duara discusses the Japanese use of the “natural frontier” to locate Manchuria within the national imaginary. Prasenjit Duara, Sovereignty and Authenticity: Manchukuo and the East Asian Modern (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2003), 179–208.
Ōtani Takeo, “Tochi to bungaku”, Manshu bungei nenkan 1 (1937): 18–19.
Lu Yuanming, Suzuki Sadami, and Liu Jianhui, “’Manshū roman’ shippitsusha ryakureki”, in Manshu roman betsumaki: Manshu rōman kenkyU, ed. Lu Yuanming, Suzuki Sadami and Liu Jianhui (Tokyo: Yumani shobō, 2003), 154.
Kizaki Ryū, “Kensetsu no bungaku”, Manshu bungei nenkan 2 (1938): 38.
Nishimura Shin’ichiro, “Manshu bungaku riron no seiri”, Manshu bungei nenkan 3 (1939): 81.
Nishimura Shin’ichiro, “Sekaikan no gakumonteki taikei kiritsu”, Manshu rōman 1 (1937): 232.
Kanō Saburō, “Gensō no bungaku: Manshū bungaku no shuppatsu no tame ni”, Manshu bungei nenkan 2 (1938): 45.
Aoki Minoru, “Manjin mono ni tsuite”, Manshu bungei nenkan 3 (1939): 53.
Shan Yuanchao (Tan Enchō), “Zaiman nihonjin bungakusha no ‘Manshū bungakuron’: ‘Manshū bungeinenkan’ shoshū no hyōron o chūshin ni”, Ajiayugaku 44 (October 2002): 69–80.
Nishimura Shin’ichiro, “Shokuminchi bungaku no saihakken: sho-kuminchi bungaku no ippanron toshite”, Manshu bungein nenkan 1 (1937): 21.
Wang Ze, “Man-nichi bungaku kōryū zatsudan”, trans. Ōuchi Takao, in Manshū roman, dai-5 maki (Tokyo: Yumani shobo, 2002), 87–93.
W.G. Beasley, Japanese Imperialism, 1894–1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), 203.
Asami Fukashi, ed., Miyaohoi (Tokyo: Yumani shoten, 2000) 2.
Asami Fukashi, “Batsu”, Miyaohoi, ed. Asami Fukashi (Tokyo: Yumani shoten, 2000), 261.
Kikuchi Kaoru, “Miyaohoi kaisetsu”, in Miyaohoi (Tokyo: Yumani shoten, 2000), 1.
Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London: Verso, 1983), 6.
Homi Bhabha, Nation and Narration (London and New York: Routledge, 1990).
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© 2010 Kimberly T. Kono
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Kono, K.T. (2010). Colonizing a National Literature: The Debates on Manchurian Literature. In: Romance, Family, and Nation in Japanese Colonial Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230105782_6
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