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Paper short abstract

This paper rereads Shiba Ryōtarō’s Kōu to Ryūhō through a Cold War lens. By analyzing narrative temporality, it explores the interplay between historical representation and the political context of the 1970s.

Paper long abstract

Shiba Ryōtarō (1923–1996) was among the many writers who actively produced rekishi shōsetsu—historical narratives—from the 1960s to the early 1980s, with a particular focus on late Edo and Meiji Japan. Many of his works, including Ryōma ga yuku (Ryoma Goes His Way, serialized between 1962 and 1966) and Saka no ue no kumo (Clouds Over the Hills, 1968–1972), became bestsellers. Notably, Shiba also wrote Kōu to Ryūhō (Xiang Yu and Liu Bang, serialized between 1977 and 1979), his only work to focus on ancient Chinese history prior to the Han dynasty, drawing extensively on Sima Qian’s Shiji. This turn toward ancient China may be partly attributed to Shiba’s visit to “New” China (that is, communist China) in the early 1970s, after which he published a series of travelogues reflecting on his experiences. At the same time, his long-standing engagement with Chinese history is suggested by the fact that his pen name itself was inspired by the historian of the Western Han dynasty.

Given Shiba’s sustained interest in Chinese history and culture, particularly during the 1970s, this paper examines how that interest is articulated in Kōu to Ryūhō, in which Sima Qian’s Shiji serves as the principal historical source. By focusing on the narrative structure of the work, this study considers two temporal dimensions: how the narrator interprets ancient Chinese history, and how this perspective implicitly engages with the contemporary situation of China in the 1970s. In doing so, the paper seeks to trace Shiba’s attitude toward New China in the postwar period and to explore the extent to which his historical vision may be reread when situated within the broader context of the Cold War.