Travelers of a Hundred Years (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Donald Keene
- First Published: 1989
- Type of Work: Literary history and criticism
- Time of Work: 1838-1854
- Setting: Japan
- Genres: Criticism, Nonfiction, History
- Subjects: Traveling or travelers, Love or romance, Authors or writers, Literature, Poetry or poets, Japan or Japanese people, Buddhism, Civil wars, Samurai
- Locales: Japan
Diaries in Japan—unlike in the United States and Europe—constitute one of the principal literary genres. If artistic, they belong to nikki bunkaru, or “diary literature.” The Japanese term nikki (a modern word for the more ancient niki) literally means “day-to-day record.” It commonly implies a daily recording by a diarist of his or her experiences, actions, feelings, and thoughts—what the French call a journal intime.
The Japanese concept of nikki, however, goes much beyond this idea. A Japanese diary may be a travel diary...
[The entire page is 2150 words long]
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