Anthologies

Hibbett, Howard, ed. Contemporary Japanese Literature: An Anthology of Fiction, Film, and Other Writing since 1945. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993, 468 p.

Includes works not previously translated into English by such writers as Kurahashi Yumiko, Abe Kobo, Mishima Yukio, Nagai Tatsuo, and Tanizaki Jun'ichiro.

Bibliographies

Anderson, G. L. "Japan: Modern Literature." In Asian Literature in English: A Guide to Information Sources, pp. 139-69. Detroit: Gale Research, 1981.

Annotated guide to primary and secondary sources.

Marks, Alfred H. and Bort, Barry D. Guide to Japanese Prose. Boston: G. K. Hall & Company, 1984, 186 p.

Descriptive bibliography of poetry, drama, and fiction anthologies and secondary sources divided into two sections: "Pre-Meiji Literature (Beginnings to 1867)" and "Meiji Literature and After (1868 to Present)."

Modern Japanese Literature in Translation: A Bibliography. Tokyo, New York, and San Francisco: Kodansha International, 1979, 311 p.

Lists translations into English and European languages of Japanese literature published since 1868.

Rimer, J. Thomas, and Morrell, Robert, E. Guide to Japanese Poetry. Rev. Ed. Boston: G. K. Hall & Co., 1984, 189 p.

Provides introductory essays and annotations to 225 works of Japanese literature in English translation.

Secondary Sources

Arima, Tatsuo. The Failure of Freedom: A Portrait of Modern Japanese Intellectuals. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1969, 296 p.

Considers "the dominant modes of thought in prewar Japan, primarily in the Taisho era (1912-1926)."

Boscaro, Adriana; Gatti, Franco; and Raveri, Massimo, eds. Rethinking Japan, Vol. I: Literature, Visual Arts & Linguistics. Sandgate, Folkstone, Kent: Japan Library Ltd., 1991, 291 p.

Reprints papers delivered during a symposium hosted in October 1987 by the Institute of Japanese Studies in Venice, Italy.

Fowler, Edward. The Rhetoric of Confession: "Shisho setsu" in Early Twentieth-Century Japanese Fiction. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988, 333 p.

Traces the roots of shishosetsu to "Chinese and native literary and intellectual traditions as well as to the structure of the Japanese language itself and "explores the impact that literary tradition, the naturalist movement and contemporary journalistic realities had on the writing of autobiographical fiction."

Gessel, Van C. The Sting of Life: Four Contemporary Japanese Novelists. New York: Columbia University Press, 1989, 326 p.

Focuses on the works of Yasuoka Shotaro, Shimao Toshio, Kojima Nobuo, and Endo Shosaku.

Keene, Donald. Dawn to the West: Japanese Literature of the Modern Era—Poetry, Drama, Criticism. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1984, 685 p.

Literary history covering such topics as modern tanka, modern haiku, poetry of the Meiji, Taisho, and Showa periods, modern Kabuki, Shimpa and Shingeki, and literary criticism since 1868.

Kimball, Arthur G. Crisis in Identity and Contemporary Japanese Novels. Rutland, Vt.: Charles E. Tuttle Co., 1973, 190 p.

Explores identity as a theme in Japanese literature since World War II.

Kokusai Bunka Shinkokai. Introduction to Contemporary Japanese Literature, Vol. III: Synopses of Major Works, 1956-1970. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1972, 313 p.

Includes biographical sketches and synopses of works by seventy-two authors.

Miyoshi, Masao. Accomplices of Silence: The Modern Japanese Novel. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1974, 194 p.

Examines narrative situation, character, plot, and language in the works of Futabatei Shimei, Mori Ogai, Natsume Soseki, Kawabata Yasunari, Dazai Osamu, and Mishima Yukio.

Petersen, Gwenn Boardman. The Moon in the Water: Understanding Tanizaki, Kawabata, and Mishima. Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1979, 366 p.

Comprises critical essays, bibliographies, and chronologies on Tanizaki Jun'ichiro, Kawabata Yasunari, and Mishima Yukio.

Powell, Irena. Writers and Society in Modern Japan. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1983, 149 p.

Attempts "to seek some social explanations for the phenomenon of modern Japanese literature, to examine its environment and the forces which formed it."

Rubin, Jay. Injurious to Public Morals: Writers and the Meiji State. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1984, 331 p.

Covers developments in Japanese literature during the Meiji period (1868-1912), focusing particularly on the rise of Naturalism and the program of government censorship.

Ueda, Makoto. Modern Japanese Poets and the Nature of Literature. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1983, 451 p.

Encompasses the works of Masaoka Shiki, Yosano Akiko, Ishikawa Takuboku, Hagiwara Sakutaro, Miyazawa Kenji, Takamura Kotaro, Ogiwara Seisensui, and Takahashi Shinkichi.

Walker, Janet A. The Japanese Novel of the Meiji Period and the Ideal of Individualism. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979, 315 p.

Discusses the interpretation of the Western ideal of individualism by major Japanese novelists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Yamanouchi, Hisaaki. The Search for Authenticity in Modern Japanese Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978, 214 p.

Examines the works of Tsubouchi Shoyo, Futabatei Shimei, Kitamura Tokoku, Shimazaki Toson, Natsume Soseki, Shiga Naoya, Akutagawa Ryuno-suke, Tanizaki Jun'ichiro, Kawabata Yasunari, Mishima Yukio, Abe Kobo, and Oe Kenzaburo, focusing on "the ways in which these writers tackled difficult questions—personal, social, and intellectual, including the confrontation with the West, and the ways in which they tried, with or without success, to represent their experiences in an authentic form of literary art."