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Paper short abstract:

This paper focuses on Ōe Kenzaburō's semi-autobiographical novel Natsukashii toshi he no tegami (1987) to show how modern Japanese literature writes the past, from the personal to the national one, but also engages with world literature, seen through the reflections on Dante's Divine Comedy.

Paper long abstract:

This paper engages in the discussion on how modern Japanese literature positions itself vis-à-vis history and the world by focusing on the novel Natsukashii toshi he no tegami (Letters to My Nostalgic Years, 1987) by Ōe Kenzaburō. This long work by the Nobel-prize laureate responds to historical vicissitudes at multiple levels. First, as a semi-autobiographical work it inscribes the author’s own history within that of modern Japan, ranging from the American occupation to the Anpo protests in front of the National Diet Building in Tokyo. Second, it engages with Japanese literary history through apparently appropriating the autobiographical narrative mode of the I-novel, a staple of naturalist-inspired writing in the early XX century, but actually turning it upside down through downplaying the strictly autobiographical aspects in the author’s history, and dividing them across two characters, the narrator K and his friend Gii, who both represent different sides of Ōe. Third, the frequent readings and interactions with passages from Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy demonstrate the novel’s concern with its relationship with the world outside of Japan. This happens at the individual level, expressed by the characters’ preoccupation with life, death, and salvation, debated against the framework of Dante’s treatment of similar global concerns. However, at a wider level, the novel is a prime example of how modern Japanese literature shapes itself in relation to various histories, both in the local domain of K and Gii’s own life, informed by the countless myths of their native forests, and on the international stage, by forging a new reading of Dante in Ōe, and Ōe in Dante. This tight combination of Japanese and ‘Western’ literature, so rare to find in contemporary writings, offers a powerful reflection on the possibilities and identities of Japan’s literary medium negotiating both its history and the world’s.