Generic Reconsiderations: But is it Japanese Literature?

As translated Japanese literature crosses over to become world literature, there still are Orientalist assumptions about modern Japanese literature across the global academy at large, as of limited scope, rejecting fictionalization, and exploring states of mind. The objective of this essay is to counter essentialist and dated assumptions about modern Japanese literature by highlighting the actual breadth and diversity of English translations that negate these stereotypes. I even question postulating any homogeneous genre under the rubric “Japanese literature.” I begin with a broad survey of English-language reviews by non-area-specialists of three contemporary texts of Japanese literature in translation: Mizumura Minae’s (b. 1951) A True Novel (Honkaku shōsetsu, 2002), Kirino Natsuo’s (b. 1951) OUT (AUTO, 1997), and Kaneshiro Kazuki’s (b. 1968) Go (Gō, 2000). I follow that survey by revisiting and putting into question the dominant literary discourse by Japan specialists regarding just what constitutes “modernity” in Japanese literary studies. I then return my focus to the three contemporary Japanese novels already introduced. In the following order I will take up the complexities of each of the three novels’ plots, narration strategies, focalization, issues of ethnicity and race, relation of the individual to social conflicts and issues, and degrees of fictionalization versus realism. Finally, I will show how these various aspects of each of the three can moreover be seen as complementary to some of the most highly regarded fictions of the belle lettres traditions of Japanese modern literature, and hence belong in an alternative genealogy of modern Japanese literature.