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Playing in the Shadows: Fictions of Race and Blackness in Postwar Japanese Literature Volume 88
Contributor(s): Bridges, William H. (Author)

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 ISBN: 0472074423     ISBN-13: 9780472074426
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
OUR PRICE: $89.20  

Binding Type: Hardcover - See All Available Formats & Editions
Published: February 2020
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Temporarily out of stock - Will ship within 2 to 5 weeks

Click for more in this series: Michigan Monograph Japanese Studies
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- Literary Criticism | Asian - Japanese
Dewey: 895.609
LCCN: 2019032054
Series: Michigan Monograph Japanese Studies
Physical Information: 1" H x 6" W x 9.1" L (1.15 lbs) 306 pages
Themes:
- Cultural Region - Japanese
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:
Playing in the Shadows considers the literature engendered by postwar Japanese authors' robust cultural exchanges with African Americans and African American literature. The Allied Occupation brought an influx of African American soldiers and culture to Japan, which catalyzed the writing of black characters into postwar Japanese literature. This same influx fostered the creation of organizations such as the Kokujin kenkyu no kai (The Japanese Association for Negro Studies) and literary endeavors such as the Kokujin bungaku zenshu (The Complete Anthology of Black Literature). This rich milieu sparked Japanese authors'--Nakagami Kenji and Oe Kenzaburo are two notable examples--interest in reading, interpreting, critiquing, and, ultimately, incorporating the tropes and techniques of African American literature and jazz performance into their own literary works. Such incorporation leads to literary works that are "black" not by virtue of their representations of black characters, but due to their investment in the possibility of technically and intertextually black Japanese literature. Will Bridges argues that these "fictions of race" provide visions of the way that postwar Japanese authors reimagine the ascription of race to bodies--be they bodies of literature, the body politic, or the human body itself.
 
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