A01=Shun Medoruma
A19=Kyle Ikeda
Author_Shun Medoruma
B06=Takuma Sminkey
Category1=Fiction
Category=FJM
Category=FJMS
Category=JWXK
Category=NHF
Category=NHTZ
Category=NHWR7
Category=NL-FJ
COP=United States
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Format=BC
HMM=204
IMPN=Stone Bridge Press
ISBN13=9781611720372
Language_English
PA=Available
PD=20170613
POP=Berkeley CA
Price=€10 to €20
PS=Active
PUB=Stone Bridge Press
Subject=Adventure
WMM=127
Product details
- ISBN 9781611720372
- Dimensions: 127 x 203mm
- Publication Date: 22 Jun 2017
- Publisher: Stone Bridge Press
- Publication City/Country: Berkeley CA, US
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
Generally regarded as Okinawa's most adventurous and promising writer of fiction today.”Michael S. Molasky, University of Minnesota
In the Woods of Memory is a powerful, thought-provoking novel that focuses on two incidents during the Battle of Okinawa, 1945: the sexual assault on Sayoko, 17, by four US soldiers and her friend Seiji’s attempt at revenge. Narrations through nine points of view, Japanese and American, from 1945 to the present day reveal the full complexity of events and how war trauma inevitably ripples through the generations.
Akutagawa Prizewinner and activist Shun Medoruma was born in Okinawa. This is his first full-length work in English translation.
Shun Medoruma was born in Nakijin, Okinawa on October 6, 1960. After graduating from the University of Ryukyus, he worked as a guard and later as a teacher. He resigned from teaching in 2003. He has written unique novels that are based on Okinawan nature, history, and climate, focusing especially on the Battle of Okinawa and memories of that war experience. Two of his best stories, Suiteki” and Mabuigumi” are concerned with war memory. Medoruma also focuses on the current base issue and how the US military impacts on Okinawa. Another element of Medoruma’s fiction is his use of uchina-guchi or Okinawan language. Medoruma often expresses his strong anti-base political views through his articles in the local newspapersand in his blog.
AWARDS:
11th Ryukyu Shinpo Short Story Prize in 1983 for Gyogunki [Diary of a School of Fish].”
12th New Okinawa Literature Prize in 1986 for Heiwa dori to nazukerareta machi o aruite.”
27th Kyushu Arts Literature Prize in 1997 for Suiteki.”
117th Akutagawa Prize in 1997 for Suiteki.”
26th Yasunari Kawabata Literary Award in 2000 for Mabuigumi [Soul-Stuffing].”
Shohei Kiyama Literary Award in 2000 for Mabuigumi [Soul-Stuffing].”
Takuma Sminkey (né Paul Sminkey) (Translator) is a professor in the Department of British and American Language and Culture at Okinawa International University. He has been living in Japan for over twenty years and acquired Japanese citizenship in 2010. He received a master’s degree in English literature from Temple University and a master’s in Advanced Japanese Studies from Sheffield University. His translations include A Rabbit’s Eyes by Haitani Kenjiro (2005) and IchigensanThe Newcomer by David Zoppetti (2011).
Kyle Ikeda (Afterword) received his doctorate in Japanese from the University of HawaiiManoa in 2007 and is now an associate professor at the University of Vermont. He is one of the leading researchers in English on Medoruma Shun. His comprehensive analysis of Medoruma’s work, Okinawan War Memory: Transgenerational Trauma and the War Fiction of Medoruma, was published in 2014.
