20th century japanese culture
A01=Shuichi Kato
akutagawa ryunosuke
american occupation forces
Author_Shuichi Kato
autobiography
baudelaire
bombing
Category=DNBM1
Category=JBCC
Category=NHD
Category=NHF
collapse of the soviet union
cultural critic
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
hiroshima
intellectual journey
japan
japanese critic
japanese culture
japanese fascism
japanese literature
jingoistic politics
literary historian
man yoshu
militarist era
modern japan
natural sciences
nuclear bomb
postwar japan
prewar japan
proust
rebellion
spiritual journey
spirituality
valery
vietnam war
Product details
- ISBN 9780520219793
- Weight: 816g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 03 May 1999
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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This critically acclaimed autobiography was an instant bestseller in Japan, where it has gone through more than forty printings since its first publication. Cultural critic, literary historian, novelist, poet, and physician, Kato Shuichi reconstructs his dramatic spiritual and intellectual journey from the militarist era of prewar Japan to the dynamic postwar landscapes of Japan and Europe. This fluid translation of "A Sheep's Song" captures Kato's unique voice and brings his insightful interpretation of modern Japan and its tumultuous relations with the outside world to English-speaking readers for the first time. Kato describes his youthful interest in the natural sciences as well as in Japanese and Western literatures - from the Man'yoshu to Akutagawa Ryunosuke, Baudelaire, Valery, and Proust. Turning to the rise of Japanese fascism in the late 1930s, he recalls his rebellion against the jingoistic political atmosphere of the time. The chapters on the war and its aftermath include experiences of Hiroshima shortly after the bombing and the often tragicomic encounters between the defeated Japanese nation and the American Occupation forces.
Throughout, memories of his wide-ranging literary career and broad experiences in Europe as a student, traveler, and cultural observer are punctuated by his unique perspectives on the relation between imagination, art, and politics. A postscript written especially for the English-language edition discusses the Vietnam War, the subsequent transformation of Japan, the cultures and societies of Europe, the United States, and China, and the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Critic, novelist, literary historian, and dramatist Kato Shuichi is Guest Professor of International Relations, Ritsumeikan University. He is author of many works, including a three-volume History of Japanese Literature (1979-83) and Form, Style, Tradition: Reflections on Japanese Art and Society (1971) and coauthor of Six Lives, Six Deaths: Portraits from Modern Japan (1979). Chia-ning Chang is Associate Professor of Japanese Literature at the University of California, Davis.
