Modern Japanese Literature: From 1868 to the Present Day
by Donald Keene (Editor)
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A collection of plays, essays, poetry, and reportage compiled by "the 20th-century's premier scholar of Japanese literature" ( Slate ). Modern Japanese Literature is Donald Keene's critically acclaimed companion volume to his landmark Anthology of Japanese Literature. Now considered the standard canon of modern Japanese writing translated into English, Modern Japanese Literature includes concise introductions to the writers, as well as a historical introduction by Professor Keene. Includes: show more "Growing Up" by Higuchi Ichiy?, a lyrical story of pre-adolescence in the nineties; Natsume S?seki's story of "Botchan, " an ill-starred and ineffectual Huck Finn; Nagai Kaf?'s "The River Sumida;" Yokomitsu Riitchi's Kafkaesque "Time;" Kawabata Yasunari's "The Mole;" "The Firefly Hunt;" a glimpse into Tanizaki Junichir?'s masterpiece "Thin Snow;" and the postwar work of such writers as Dazai Osamu and Mishima Yukio. show lessTags
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Long a standard collection, though now rather limited by ending the works included about 40 years ago. I have used it in a Japanese literrature in translation class and one of my students complained the stories were (almost) always sad. Some are unbearably so (e.g. "Old Gen") but of course some odf this period (e.g. WWII) was very sad for Japan.
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Japanese Literature
230 works; 37 members
Author Information
Donald Keene was born in Brooklyn, New York on June 18, 1922. He was a child prodigy and entered Columbia University on scholarship in 1938 at the age of 16. He received a bachelor's degree in 1942, a master's degree in 1947, and a doctoral degree in 1951 from Columbia. Shortly after Pearl Harbor, he enlisted in the Navy and volunteered to study show more Japanese. His first experience as a translator came in Hawaii, where he worked on routine military reports captured from Japanese units in the Pacific theater. He then became a wartime interrogator after the battle in Okinawa on April 1, 1945. After he was discharged, he taught at Columbia University for 56 years. Over his career, he translated many of the most important works of Japanese literature into English. He also wrote numerous books in both English and Japanese including Dawn to the West and Travelers of the Ages. In 1985, he became the first non-Japanese to receive the Yomiuri Prize for Literature for literary criticism. He became a Japanese citizen in 2012. He died on February 24, 2019 at the age of 96. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 1956 (English collection) (English collection)
- Important places
- Japan
- Dedication
- To Ted and Fanny De Bary
- First words
- Preface: It may come as a surprise to some readers that this volume, devoted to the Japanese literature of the last eighty or so years, should be as long as my Anthology of Japanese Literature, which covers more than a thousa... (show all)nd years.
Introduction: The transformation of Japan within the space of about forty years from an obscure oriental monarchy to one of the great powers is accounted a miracle of the modern age. - Original language
- English
Classifications
- Genre
- Fiction and Literature
- DDC/MDS
- 895.6082 — Literature & rhetoric Asian Literature Literatures of East and Southeast Asia Japanese Japanese literature Collections
- LCC
- PL882 .K43 — Language and Literature Languages and literatures of Eastern Asia, Africa, Oceania Languages of Eastern Asia, Africa, Oceania Japanese language and literature Japanese literature
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 315
- Popularity
- 100,930
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (3.69)
- Languages
- English, Japanese
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 5
- ASINs
- 10
