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Paper short abstract

This paper focusses on disaster narratives produced by high-profile Bundan writers for the literary magazine Bungei Shunju during the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923. It explores the complex relationship between disaster and literature within the context of the print industry's recovery.

Paper long abstract

Tokyo’s publishing industry suffered tremendous material damage in the Great Kantō Earthquake (GKE) on the 1st of September 1923. The all-encompassing experience of this disaster also provided the industry with a path to recovery: magazines that were still able to print put together issues devoted to the disaster and its aftermath, addressing popular demand for coverage and narrative representation of this collective event, as if printing themselves out of economic collapse.

This paper considers Bungei Shunju, a high-profile literary magazine still in print today but only a year old at the time of the GKE, as a case study to investigate this literary recovery effort. In particular, it focusses on texts printed in a special ‘disaster writings’ section within the November-December 1923 issue that was put together by the magazine’s chief editor, Kikuchi Kan. Among the writers who responded to his solicitations were Kawabata Yasunari, Yokomitsu Riichi, and Uno Koji – stars of the modern literary scene.

Through its analysis of this issue of Bungei Shunju, this paper charts the varied narratives and representations of the space and the time of disaster, highlighting the diversity of disaster writings that flourished within the close-knit circle of literati (the Bundan) in the immediate and urgent aftermath of the GKE. In doing so, this paper explores the complex relationship between disaster and literature, arguing that a disaster like the GKE is both a pivotal moment of destruction, collective trauma, and uncertainty as well as a creative constraint and an uncharted experience leading to a surge in literary production that is both harnessed and propelled by magazine editors.

In its investigation of the relationship between disaster and literature, this paper’s analytical framework places particular emphasis on the 1920s publication context of mass print media and urban readership. It highlights the relevance of paratextual elements such as advertising, layout, and illustrations, as well as the role of magazine editors in shaping the literary response to disaster and our subsequent understanding of modern Japanese literature.