Description
Book SynopsisHomecomings tells the story of late-returning Japanese soldiers and their struggle to adapt to a newly peaceful and prosperous society. Yoshikuni Igarashi explores what Japanese society accepted and rejected, complicating the definition of a postwar consensus and prolonging the experience of war for both Japanese soldiers and the nation.
Trade ReviewA bracing, riveting, and lucid retelling of postwar Japanese culture,
Homecomings is the best kind of cultural history, capturing the mesh of experience, memory, history, and representation. The book reveals the psychic and ethical complexities of the lives of soldiers who returned to a defeated nation. It shows how postwar Japanese culture was created out of those experiences and how they were narrated and represented across culture in writing, photography, and film. -- Alan Tansman, director, Townsend Center of the Humanities, University of California, Berkeley
Homecomings tells the stories of six repatriated Japanese soldiers. Yoshikuni Igarashi shows how Japan's mass media represented these men and how they grappled with their media images. By focusing on returnees from the immediate postwar years as well as those from the 1970s, Igarashi tells a rich story of the decades-long struggle of the Japanese people to come to terms with the awful experience of the war. -- Andrew Gordon, Harvard University
As masterfully recounted by Yoshikuni Igarashi, these stories of Japanese soldiers who returned home years (and sometimes decades) after 1945 are revealing, sometimes heartbreaking and often confounding, and thoroughly fascinating.
Homecomings details how servicemen belatedly repatriated from Soviet labor camps and Southeast Asian and Pacific Island jungles could become both painful reminders and powerful icons in a postwar Japan eager to distance itself from and mythologize a deeply troubled past. -- Bill Tsutsui, president and professor of history, Hendrix College
Homecomings is a brilliant cultural history of mass-mediated negotiations of Japan's 'postwar' from the 1940s through the 1970s and beyond. Yoshikuni Igarashi brings close and sympathetic attention to the ironies, hypocrisies, and inconsistencies that colored the landscape of reintegration after Japan's disastrous empire and war. -- Franziska Seraphim, Boston College
The author deftly examines the conflict between the need for returnees to verbalize their experiences and the government's attempt to smother the past, burying the legacies of war and colonialism under a newer, brighter postwar narrative. * Japan Times *
This eloquent volume will no doubt become a work to which diverse audiences— scholars, students, and general readers with an interest in the complex events of the past—will turn repeatedly to draw lessons about modern Japan’s pained relationship with the vestiges of its failed empire. * Pacific Affairs *
Homecomings adds rich substance to history. * Asian Affairs *
A remarkable, detailed study of life in Japan and all countries in Asia involved in WWII and its aftermath. . . . Recommended. * Choice *
The great strength of
Homecomings is its discerning analysis of how antiwar memories have been mediated in the postwar period. It is best suited for advanced undergraduates and graduate students with some grounding in the historiography of imperial Japan and postcolonial topics like repatriation. -- Kristine Dennehy, California State University–Fullerton * Michigan War Studies Review *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
Note on Personal Names and Names of War
Introduction
1. Life After the War: Former Servicemen in Postwar Japanese Film
2. The Story of a Man Who Was Not Allowed to Come Home: Gomikawa Junpei and
The Human Condition (
Ningen no joken)
3. Longing for Home: Japanese POWs in Soviet Captivity and Their Repatriation
4. "No Denunciation": Ishihara Yoshiro's Soviet Internment Experiences
5. Lost and Found in the South Pacific: Postwar Japan's Mania Over Yokoi Shoichi's Return
6. Rescued from the Past: Onoda Hiro'o's Endless War
7. The Homecoming of the "Last Japanese Soldier": Nakamura Teruo/Shiniyuwu/Li Guanghui's Postwar
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Index
