Paper short abstract:

This paper discusses Medoruma Shun's essay collection Okinawa 'sengo' zero-nen and Ôe Kenzaburô's Okinawa nôto. It will be analyzed what aspects of the relationship between Okinawa and Japan are addressed, what writing strategies are used, and what overall messages can be identified.

Paper long abstract:

Since the early 1970s, Okinawa has been increasingly commercialized as a tourist destination and imaginary site of 'iyashi', supposedly being able to cure the ills of contemporary Japanese society. On the other hand, the prefecture's history of colonization and the traumatic experiences of the Battle of Okinawa have been excluded from the dominant Japanese discourse about Okinawa and its relationship to Japan. However, many literary texts written by authors from Okinawa - and by politically engaged writers from the Japanese main islands as well - refer to aspects of Okinawa's history of suppression which have long been evaded, concealed, and forgotten. Representing hitherto unarticulated experiences can therefore be identified as a conscious act of resistance in a postcolonial setting by which authors claim recognition and agency for Okinawan subjects.

This paper will discuss two collections of literary essays from a comparative perspective: Medoruma Shun's Okinawa 'sengo' zero-nen (2005) and Ôe Kenzaburô's Okinawa nôto (1970). As different as these two authors are in terms of writing styles and literary approaches, they seem to pursue a similar enterprise in these volumes, as they both very openly address the historical and current power imbalances between mainland Japan and Okinawa. It shall therefore, as a first step, be analyzed what aspects of the difficult relationship between Okinawa and Japan are exactly discussed in these essays. It is then to be asked how the respective problems are addressed: What argumentation patterns can be identified, what kinds of narrative and stylistic means are employed, and from where do the authors speak? Finally, conclusions regarding the essays' overall message concerning the relationship between Okinawa and Japan shall be drawn. My current hypothesis is that both authors (by quite different means) advocate Okinawan empowerment and argue against the notion of a homogeneous Japan, highlighting the fact that with Okinawa there clearly exists an 'other' within the Japanese national context whose 'otherness' should not be suppressed and eliminated by assimilation.