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(*)(Translated by Edwin McClellan) (★)(1.This is the translation of ´Anya kooro´, one of Japan´s literary classics of modern times. Written in the early twenties (though not finished until 1937), this novel may be regarded as the most important of contemporary works, whether one measures its success by the number of readers it attracts half a century after it was written or by the degree of influence it has had on subsequent writers in Japan. It is still read by almost every Japanese in his youth, and its personal, self-examinatory approach was an innovation in literature that was adopted by innumerable later writers. For its time and place it is an extraordinarily bold work, revealing one man´s search for his individuality against a background of ´family´and the conventions this represented. The protagonist, a sensitive young writer who is the second son of a wealthy family, passes through a series of emotional incidents and crises that expose his self-doubts and his lack of confidence. These culminate in the discovery that hisown birth was the result of his mother´s affair with her father-in-law, a discovery that forces him to face the horror it arouses in him and embark on a lonely journey to self-knowledge. He gainstemporary respite and calm through marriage, only to have further disasters overtake him when his son dies in infancy and his wife is seduced by her cousin. No other Japanese writer has used language quite as Shiga has done. ´His is the language of the traditional Japanese poet translated into modern prose,´ writes the translator, Edwin McClellan. The style is taut and tense and devastatingly effective, and in combination with the author´s insights into human nature, it makes this work compelling reading. 2.Naoya Shiga was born in 1883 and received his early education at Gakushuin (the Peers´ School). In 1906 he entered the University of Tokyo, first studying English, then Japanese literature, but he was never a dedicated student and withdrew in 1910. By then he was an aspiring writer, and with a group of friends, many of whom were destined to become famous, he started a journal called ´Shirakaba´, which did much to familiarize educated Japanese with contemporary Western art. Through publication of shorter pieces in this magazine, he established a reputation as a writer. The first half of ´A Dark Night´s Passing´was published in 1921, followed by a substantial part of the second half in 1922 and 1923. It was not finished, however, until 1937. From then until his death in 1971, he wrote very little, but despite his small output, Shiga remains to this day one of the most revered of modern Japanese writers. Even without this novel he would be well remembered for his short stories, several of which have become minor classics.) |
BASE de DATOS, Biblioteca del Centro Cultural de la Embajada de Japon
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