| NOTA |
(*)(¬Ń½ģń, translated by Frank Motofuji) ()(Titulos originales : LKani-koosen [IHD, 1929]L,LFuzai Jinushi [sŻnå, 1929]L These two novelettes, fascinating both as literature and as social comment, represent some of the finest work of JapanLs most famous writer of the proletarian literature school. Both are fictionalized accounts of political struggles witnessed by the author in northern Japan in the twenties : LThe Factory ShipL describes the plight of fishermen and factory hands aboard the Hakkoo Maru, a floating crab cannery that plies the northern seas of Japan, while LThe Absentee LandlordL is a sympathetic account of the lives of impoverished tenent farmers in Hokkaido who have been lured there by promises of instant wealth and instead find themselves exploited at every turn. Both pieces center on the themes of oppression and political awakening, and both celebrate the strength of united group action. Revolutionary in its political message, TakijiLs writing is revolutionary in style as well, as the translator points out in his introduction. Eschewing traditional forms and images, Takiji wrote in short, terse sentences, portraying the usually benign Japanese Nature as cruel and threatening, and stripping human relationships of the subtlety we have grown accustomed to expect in Japanese fiction. The authorLs dedication to the cause of righting social and political injustices penetrates his writing, creating a certain shrillness of tone which is tempered by his compassion. TakijiLs inflammatory writing, banned almost as soon as it was published, won him no popularity with the Japanese authorities. After several years of underground existence as a writer and political agitator, Takiji was arrested in Tokyo in 1933, at the age of thirty. Less than six hours later he died, after having been tortured and beaten by the police. It was not until after the Second World War that the ban on TakijiLs writing was lifted. Frank T. Motofuji is associate professor in the Department of Oriental Languages, University of California, Berkeley.) |
BASE de DATOS, Biblioteca del Centro Cultural de la Embajada de Japon
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