Resisting monoculturalism: Expatriate memoirs as sites of cultural dialogue in Japan

This article examines how contemporary expatriate memoirs set in Japan use narrative strategies to challenge essentialist representations of Japanese culture and identity. Focusing on The View From Breast Pocket Mountain by Karen Hill Anton (2020) and The Only Gaijin in the Village by Iain Maloney (2020), the article argues that these works exemplify a literary mode of intercultural life writing shaped by liminality. Rather than presenting the expatriate as a cultural translator or disaffected outsider, these memoirs employ tone, structure and narrative voice to depict belonging as an evolving and participatory process. The article situates these texts within a broader discursive context shaped by earlier Western commentators on Japan and draws on theoretical insights to frame liminality not merely as a thematic concern but as a creative principle. By attending to how narrative forms – including structure, tone and voice – shape and enact the content of intercultural experience, the article repositions expatriate memoir as a literary form in which cultural negotiation is performed on the page.