The Closed Hand

Images of the Japanese in Modern Peruvian Literature

Rebecca Riger Tsurumi

• Publisher: Purdue University Press
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9781612492124
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Latin American & Caribbean Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

In her book, The Closed Hand: Images of the Japanese in Modern Peruvian Literature, Rebecca Riger Tsurumi captures the remarkable story behind the changing human landscape in Peru at the end of the nineteenth century when Japanese immigrants established what would become the second largest Japanese community in South America. She analyzes how non-Japanese Peruvian narrators unlock the unspoken attitudes and beliefs about the Japanese held by mainstream Peruvian society, as reflected in works written between 1966 and 2006. Tsurumi explores how these Peruvian literary giants, including Mario Vargas Llosa, Miguel Gutiérrez, Alfredo Bryce Echenique, Carmen Ollé, Pilar Dughi, and Mario Bellatin, invented Japanese characters whose cultural differences fascinated and confounded their creators. She compares the outsider views of these Peruvian narrators with the insider perceptions of two Japanese Peruvian poets, José Watanabe and Doris Moromisato, who tap personal experiences and memories to create images that define their identities. The book begins with a brief sociohistorical overview of Japan and Peru, describing the conditions in both nations that resulted in Japanese immigration to Peru and concluding in contemporary times. Tsurumi traces the evolution of the terms "Orient" and "Japanese/Oriental" and the depiction of Asians in Modernista poetry and in later works by Octavio Paz and Jorge Luis Borges. She analyzes the images of the Japanese portrayed in individual works of modern Peruvian narrative, comparing them with those created in Japanese Peruvian poetry. The book concludes with an appendix containing excerpts from Tsurumi's interviews and correspondence in Spanish with writers and poets in Lima and Mexico City.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter One A Socio-historical Overview of the Japanese Presence in Peru
• Chapter Two Images of the Orient/Japan in Spanish American Literature from the Modernistas and Beyond
• Chapter Three A Japanese Swashbuckler in La casa verde and a Japanese Gangster in Travesuras de la niña mala
• Chapter Four Images of the Japanese in Peruvian Short Fiction: “Matavilela” and “Muerte de Sevilla en Madrid”
• Chapter Five Las dos caras del deseo: A Female Nikkei Character in a Pivotal Role
• Chapter Six Postwar Japanese Literature as a Catalyst for Change in Puñales escondidos
• Chapter Seven Images of the Japanese in El jardín de la señora Murakami and Shiki Nagaoka: Una nariz de ficción
• Chapter Eight Reflections of the Japanese in the Poetry of José Watanabe
• Chapter Nine Representations of the Okinawan/Japanese in the Poetry of Doris Moromisato
• Chapter Ten Conclusions
• Appendix Interviews with Six Authors
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Author