Five Modern Japanese Novelists

Donald Keene

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Year: 2005
• eBook ISBN: 9780231507493
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Asian Literary Collections
• Index: Literature

The New Yorker has called Donald Keene "America's preeminent scholar of Japanese literature." Now he presents a new book that serves as both a superb introduction to modern Japanese fiction and a memoir of his own lifelong love affair with Japanese literature and culture. Five Modern Japanese Novelistsprofiles five prominent writers whom Donald Keene knew personally: Tanizaki Jun'ichiro, Kawabata Yasunari, Mishima Yukio, Abe Kobo, and Shiba Ryotaro. Keene masterfully blends vignettes describing his personal encounters with these famous men with autobiographical observations and his trademark learned literary and cultural analysis.

Keene opens with a confession: before arriving in Japan in 1953, despite having taught Japanese for several years at Cambridge, he knew the name of only one living Japanese writer: Tanizaki. Keene's training in classical Japanese literature and fluency in the language proved marvelous preparation, though, for the journey of literary discovery that began with that first trip to Japan, as he came into contact, sometimes quite fortuitously, with the genius of a generation. It is a journey that will fascinate experts and newcomers alike

	Index

Abe Kōbō; and Communist Party; early years of; education of; foreign travels of; ill health of; income of; internationalism of; Japan, relation to; Japanese language, interest in; and Keene; and lawless Japanese soldiers; literature, love of; and nationalism; output of; as photographer; political views of; prizefighting, interest in; prizes won by; Russian translator of works of; sense of humor of; soil, love of; on theater, function of; and traditional Japanese literature; on truth; word processor, use of; and World War II; writing by

WORKS: Animals Head for Home (Kemonotachi wa kokyō wo mezasu); The Ark Sakura (Hakobune Sakura maru); “Beyond the Curve” (Kābu no mukō); characters’ names in; Collection of Anonymous Poems (Mumei shishū); The Face of Another (Tanin no kao); Friends (Tomodachi); “Fruit of the Apple,”; “The Intruders” (Chinnyūsha); Kangaroo Notebook (Kangarū nōto); The Little Elephant Is Dead (Kozō wa shinda); meanings in, unspoken; novels, reception of; plays; “The Red Cocoon” (Akai mayu); The Ruined Map (Moetsukita chizu); subjects of; on travels in Eastern Europe; The Uniform (Seifuku); “The Wall; The Crime of S. Karma” (Kabe; S. Karuma shi no hanzai); The Woman in the Dunes (Suna no onna),

Abe Studio

After the Banquet (Utage no ato, Mishima)

Akutagawa Prize

Amateur Club (Amachua kurabu, Tanizaki)

Animals Head for Home (Kemonotachi wa kokyō wo mezasu, Abe)

Arita Hachirō

Ark Sakura, The (Hakobune Sakura maru, Abe)

Arrowroot (Yoshino kuzu, Tanizaki)

Asahi shimbun (newspaper)

Asakusa Crimson Gang, The (Asakusa kurenai dan, Kawabata)

authors, postwar groups of

Basques

beauty. See also ugliness

“Beyond the Curve” (Kābu no mukō, Abe)

Blind Man’s Tale, A (Mōmoku monogatari, Tanizaki)

Blue Period, The (Ao no jidai, Mishima)

“Boy Prodigy, The” (Shindō, Tanizaki)

Buddhism

Bunraku puppet theater

bushidō (way of the warrior)

Candau, Sauveur Antoine

cherry blossoms

“Children” (Shōnen, Tanizaki)

Collection of Anonymous Poems (Mumei shishū, Abe)

Communist Party

Confessions of a Mask (Kamen no kokuhaku, Mishima)

creoles (languages)

“Crystal Fantasies” (Suishō gensō, Kawabata)

culture, nationalism and

Dazai Osamu

Decay of the Angel, The (Tennin Gosui, Mishima)

deer-frightener (shishi-odoshi)

Diary of a Mad Old Man (Fūten rōjinnikki, Tanizaki)

“Diary of a Sixteen-Year-Old” (Jūroku sai no nikki, Kawabata)

Drunk as a Lord (Yotte Sōrō, Shiba)

Eguchi (fictional character)

emperor, as a god

epics

Essays in Idleness (Tsurezure-gusa, Kenkō)

Face of Another, The (Tanin no kao, Abe)

Fall of the House of Suzaku, The (Suzaku-ke no metsubō, Mishima)

Fighting Harada

Francis Xavier (saint)

Friends (Tomodachi, Abe)

“Fruit of the Apple” (Abe)

Fukuda Tsuneari

“German Spy, The” (Dokutan, Tanizaki)

go (game)

Gogo no eikō (The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea, Mishima)

Golden Pavilion (Kinkaku)

Great Cultural Revolution (China)

Great Earthquake (1923)

Great Mirror, The (Ōkagami, historical fiction)

Greek plays

Hammarskjöld, Dag

Hayashi Yōken

Heijō

Hirohito (emperor)

historical ...

Table of contents

• Cover 
• Half title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents 
• Preface
• Tanizaki Jun’ichirō (1886–1965)
• Kawabata Yasunari (1899–1972)
• Mishima Yukio (1925–1970)
• Abe Kōbō (1924–1993)
• Shiba Ryōtarō (1923–1996)
• Supplemental Readings
• Index