Kirino Natsuo and the Hardboiled Method：The Quotation and Transformation of Modern Japanese Literature in Gyokuran

Kirino Natsuo (1951-) is a prominent Japanese novelist whose work blends hardboiled mystery techniques and references to modern Japanese literature, on this basis exploring memories of war and colonization.My previous paper (2024) focused on Kirino’s “The Sleep of Water, the Dream of Ash” (1995), and examined how that novel incorporates Kawabata Yasunari’s concept of the “magical realm” and 1960s Japanese hardboiled mystery elements in order to highlight Japan’s historical trauma.This paper extends that analysis to Gyokuran(2001), and investigates Kirino’s quotation practices. The novel explicitly references Yokomitsu Riichi’s Shanghai (1932) and Tokutomi Roka’s The Cuckoo (1902), while implicitly drawing from hardboiled writers like Tani Jouji and Ikushima Jiro. It also quotes her great-uncle Hagyu Tadashi’s Trouble (1930), thereby including her own family history. I argue that Kirino deconstructivity quotes these texts in order to create her unique perspective on hardboiled literature.