Description
Book SynopsisThe Handbook of Modern and Contemporary Japanese Women Writers offers a comprehensive overview of women writers in Japan, from the late 19th century to the early 21st. Featuring 24 newly written contributions from scholars in the field—representing expertise from North America, Europe, Japan, and Australia—the Handbook introduces and analyzes works by modern and contemporary women writers that coalesce loosely around common themes, tropes, and genres. Putting writers from different generations in conversation with one another reveals the diverse ways they have responded to similar subjects. Whereas women writers may have shared concerns—the pressure to conform to gendered expectation, the tension between family responsibility and individual interests, the quest for self-affirmation—each writer invents her own approach. As readers will see, we have writers who turn to memoir and autobiography, while others prefer to imagine fabulous fictional worlds. Some engage with the literary classics—whether Japanese, Chinese, or European—and invest their works with rich intertextual allusions. Other writers grapple with colonialism, militarism, nationalism, and industrialization. This Handbook builds a foundation which invites readers to launch their own investigations into women’s writing in Japan.
Table of ContentsPart 1: Expanding Genre and the Exploration of Gendered Writing
1. When Women Write History: Nogami Yaeko, Ariyoshi Sawako, and Nagai Michiko (Susan W. Furukawa)
2. Writing Within and Beyond Genre: Okura Teruko, Miyano Murako, Togawa Masako, Miyabe Miyuki, and Minato Kanae and Mystery Fiction (Quillon Arkenstone)
3. Feminist “Failed” Reproductive Futures in Speculative Fiction: Ohara Mariko, Murata Sayaka, and Ueda Sayuri (Kazue Harada)
Part 2: Owning the Classics 4.
Tales of Ise Grows Up: Higuchi Ichiyo, Kurahashi Yumiko, and Kawakami Mieko (Emily Levine)
5. Japanese Women Writers and Folktales:
Urashima Taro in the Literary Production of Oba Minako and Kurahashi Yumiko (Luciana Cardi)
6. Women and the Non-human Animal: Rewriting the Canine Classic—Tsushima Yuko, Ito Hiromi, Tawada Yoko, Matsuura Rieko, and Sakuraba Kazuki (Lucy Fraser)
Part 3: Sexual Trauma, Survival, and the Search for the Good Life
7. Writing Women and Sexuality: Tamura Toshiko and Sata Ineko (Michiko Suzuki)
8. Voicing Herstory’s Silence: Three Women Playwrights—Hasegawa Shigure, Ariyoshi Sawako, and Dakemoto Ayumi (Barbara Hartley)
9. Writing Women’s Happiness in the 1980s: Labor and Care in Kometani Foumiko, Hayashi Mariko and Yoshimoto Banana (Nozomi Uematsu)
10. Risky Business: Overcoming Traumatic Experiences in the Works of Kakuta Mitsuyo and Kanehara Hitomi (David S. Holloway)
Part 4: Food, Family, and the Feminist Appetite
11. Watching the Detectives: Writing as Feminist Praxis in Enchi Fumiko and Kurahashi Yumiko (Julia C. Bullock)
12. Food as Feminist Critique: Osaki Midori, Kanai Mieko, Ogawa Yoko (Hitomi Yoshio)
Part 5: Beyond the Patriarchal Family
13. “The Mommy Trap,”: Childless Women Write Motherhood—Kono Taeko, Takahashi Takako, and Murata Sayaka (Amanda C. Seaman)
14. Women and Queer Kinships: Matsuura Rieko, Fujino Chiya, and Murata Sayaka (Anna Specchio); Part 6: Age is Just a Number
15. Beyond Shojo Fantasy: Women Writers Writing Girlhood—Yoshiya Nobuko, Tanabe Seiko, and Hayashi Mariko (Hiromi Tsuchiya Dollase)
16. Writing the Aged Woman: Enchi Fumiko and Tanabe Seiko (Sohyun Chun)
17. Humor and Aging: Ogino Anna, Ito Hiromi, and Kanai Mieko (Tomoko Aoyama)
Part 7: Colonies, War, Aftermath
18. Women and War: Yosano Akiko and Hayashi Fumiko (Noriko J. Horiguchi) .
19. Women and Colonies: Shanghai and Manchuria in the Autobiographical Writings of Hayashi Kyoko, Sawachi Hisae, and Miyao Tomiko (Lianying Shan)
20. Women and Aftermath: Koza as Topos in Literature from Okinawa—Toma Hiroko, Yoshida Sueko, and Sakiyama Tami (Davinder L. Bhowmik)
Part 8: Environment and Disaster
21. Writing Human Disaster: Hayashi Kyoko, Ishimure Michiko, and Kawakami Hiromi (Rachel DiNitto)
22. Teeming Up with Life: Reading the Environment in Ishimure Michiko, Hayashi Fumiko, and Osaki Midori (Jon L. Pitt)
Part 9: Crossing Borders: Writing Transnationally
23. Women and the Ethnic Body: Lee Jungja, Yu Miri, and Che Sil (Christina Yi)
24. Transnational Narratives and Travel Writing: Yoshimoto Banana, Takahashi Takako, and Yi Yangji (Pedro Thiago Ramos Basso)
