Paper short abstract:

Through the writings of five major Japanese novelists of the high imperial age (1918-1945), this presentation explores the ways in which fiction of various genres served as a medium to develop, explore, and challenge orthodox ideologies concerning race and narcotics.

Paper long abstract:

The significance of narcotics to Japanese history and literature has long escaped attention due to the prevailing myth that Japan is and always has been substance-free. However, during the early twentieth century the Japanese empire maintained the highest rates of narcotics consumption in the world. Japanese traffickers, many with ties to the state, ensnared millions of Asians and provided the financial and ideological underpinnings of expansionism. Against this political backdrop, references to drugs were frequent in imperial writings. This essay seeks to articulate a genre of Japanese fiction (akin to the European "belle epoque") that flourished in the empire during the years between 1918 and 1945. Representing many different categories and stylistic movements, writers such as Satō Haruo, Ōshita Udaru, Yokomitsu Riichi, Shōji Sōichi, and Osaragi Jirō deployed narcotics as a trope to index Japan's changing geopolitical position and aspirations through the intertwined constructs of race and nationality.