Modern literature (late 19th and 20th century)
At the dawn of the 20th century, a bourgeois literature and a social literature with black novels appeared. Writers were influenced by several schools, including French naturalism, and between 1900 and 1920 there was an explosion of autobiographical narratives and the affirmation of a writing based on the experience of the subject. Two writers mark this period: Shimei Futabatei and Ōgaï Mori. Sono omokage(His Shadow), and Heibon(Quelconque), date from 1906. The mastery of a new language stands out. Ogaï Mori published Vita sexualis in 1909, Seinen (The Young Man) in 1911, and, in 1915, Ogaï Mori published Wild Goose. He completed his work by writing historical accounts of the Edo period. Natsume Soseki also distinguished himself with Je suis un chat (1905) and his very popular novel Botchan (1906), in which he depicts a society divided between tradition and modernity. Still today, this novel is one of the most widely read in Japan, and the recent and magnificent manga adaptation of Jiro Taniguchi's Au temps de Botchan (5 volumes) was also a huge success.
The "new sensations" movement (Shin kankaku ha)
Created in 1925, this movement attracted a number of writers who received both the vision of cinema and the violence of ideas. Yasunari Kawabata published the Miniature Novels while Toshikazu Koshimitsu wrote Machines. It should be remembered that Yasunari Kawabata, who died in 1972, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, and his works are distinguished by the descriptions of Kyoto. His last novel published in 1965, Tristesse et beauté, is a masterpiece, as are Pays de neige, Le grondement de la montagne and Les belles endormies. His correspondence with Yukio Mishima is also a major work. Other authors from this period include Junichiro Tanizaki (who died in 1965) and his ironic and cruel descriptions of society, such as Swastika; The Cat, His Master and His Two Mistresses; The Shameless Confession, or Praise of the Shadow. It was in the context of the 1929 crisis and the rise of Japanese nationalism that proletarian literature emerged. The feeling of injustice and the denunciation of working conditions in the factories developed. Repression of writers also increased. Many were imprisoned. Masuji Ibuse relates with great precision, subtly mixing reality and fiction, the disguised shipwreck of modern life in his novel Usaburō(The Shipwrecked), published in 1955. The war years and their tragic end have shaken the Japanese literary landscape and society, and Osamu Dazai's novel, One Man 's Destruction (1948), perfectly describes this period. As Americans occupied the country, some novelists turned to modernity. Plays, radio and the media become essential to highlight the hope and turmoil of these years.
The post-war period
Yukio Mishima quickly emerged as the writer of the new post-war generation. The novels Confession of a Mask and The Golden Pavilion bring him to the forefront as he creates a right-wing extremist movement, a kind of militaristic sect that promotes the values of an eternal Japan dictated by the voice of the bushi (knights in armour). He will make seppuku (ritual suicide) on November 25, 1970, publicly, asking his lover to take off his head, which the latter will carry out in an astonishing butchery act. On the day of his death, Mishima mailed his novel The Decaying Angel to his publisher, which concludes his tetralogy The Sea of Fertility, an admirable reflection on modern Japan. Marguerite Yourcenar's homage to the writer, Mishima ou la vision du vide, is also a magnificent text.
Nowadays..
The last forty years have seen the emergence of a few historical writers, such as Ryōtarō Shiba, with many very precise novels that retrace Japan's journey from Meiji(Saka no ue no kumo, Nuage au- dessus de la montée, for the Japanese-Russian conflict for example), poetic, such as Machi Tawara, with Salada kinenbi(Salada kinenbi, published in 1987, this collection of tanka poems in contemporary language sold two million copies) or novels by Hiroyuki Itsuki, which lead back to a certain nostalgia for the heart of things (a multitude of works describe the problems of the Japanese in their mental attitudes). Following a broadcast of the Japan Broadcasting Company (NHK) on the Silk Road, everything related to this subject had its hours of glory during this period. Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1994, Kenzaburo Oe is one of the most famous recent authors in the world. His descriptions of country life and the upbringing of a handicapped child (his own son) are omnipresent in his works such as Tell Us How to Survive Our Madness, The Game of the Century or A Quiet Life. His collection of essays, Notes from Hiroshima, on the survivors of the atomic bomb, is also one of the major works of this activist for democracy and the abandonment of nuclear power. We also note the mysterious universe of Abe Kobo, notably La femme des sables (1962), and, among the current authors, a tendency towards an incisive style, which can be found in Banana Yoshimoto (Kitchen), or Ryu Murakami and his worrying universe in Les bébés de la consigne automatique, Miso soup or Parasites. Born in 1949, Haruki Murakami, often cited as a nobleman, has published such hugely successful works as La ballade de l'impossible, Kafka sur le rivage and the international best-seller 1Q84 (a tribute to Orwell, 1984 and 1Q84 being pronounced in the same way in Japanese). His descriptions of society are reminiscent of Soseki's novels. Finally, a word should be said about Kazuo Ishiguro, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2017. This British writer, born in Nagasaki, is known in particular for his books published in French by Gallimard, including the latest Le Géant enfoui (The Buried Giant ) or his famous novel adapted for the cinema Les Vestiges du jour (1989), which won the Booker Prize.
