Microsoft Word iicj2016-18394. doc

From 
Genbaku Bungaku
 to
 Fukushima Bungaku 
 
The final approach to a critic review of the 
genbaku bungaku
literary genre is 
conceived following Tachibana Reiko’s 
Narrative As Counter-Memory
22
as the main 
source of criticism.
As sum up by Tachibana, the 
genbaku bungaku
genre can be considered by the point 
of view of the strict form, as suggested by Hijiya-Kirschnereit; in these case works 
concerning Hiroshima or Nagasaki atomic bombings can be divided into:
1)
jun bungaku 
純文学
; 
2)
taish
ū
 bungaku 
大衆文学
; 
3)
private accounts (diaries, letters…); 
4) scientific data (reports, inquiries…),
the last of which is nowadays labeled as non-
fiction. It must be added, for the sake of completeness, that even though many 
academics like Takahashi Toshio and Jonathan Dil share the opinion that a 
jun 
bungaku
/
taish
ū
 bungaku 
distinction
 
is no more a necessary discourse,
23
the influent 
critic Harold Bloom still defends the position of the superiority of “the classics”.
24
Although the aim of this study is not headed to classify the authorial literary responses 
to catastrophe as products of “high” or “low” literature, this division can not be lapsed 
while dealing with the revaluation of the genre. This article takes then the stance of 
Sartre in considering every literary expression as a potential 
ouvrage de l’esprit
.
25
As 
regarding Japanese non-fictional production however, a further division can be 
figured out in regards to the literary form assumed by the piece of work in question, 
as to say: 
-
kiroku bungaku
記 録 文 学
(“literature of the recording”): journals, 
autobiographical notes, 
mémorial
: private accounts with the aim of registering 
facts; 
22
Tachibana, R. (1998). 
Narrative As Counter-Memory: A Half-Century of Postwar Writing in 
Germany and Japan. 
New York: State University of New York Press.
23
According to a private conversation with Dottor Dil, assistant professor at the Department of Foreign 
Languages and Liberal Arts of Keio University in occasion of this IAFOR conference. Takahashi 
Toshio, professor of Late Showa and Contemporary Japanese Literature at Waseda University, shared 
his thought-provoking stance about this topic during his course about non-fictional production at 
Waseda University, May 2016.
24
Farkas, A. (2015). 
Che cosa resta della letteratura? Intervista con Harold Bloom.
Luxembourg City: 
Amazon Media EU SARL (Kindle format only).
25
Benoît, (2000) (p. 141).

---

-
ruporutaajy
ū
ルポルタージュ
(“reportage”): articles and journalistic inquiries 
with journalistic purposes (often politically compromised); 
-
jiken sh
ō
setsu
事件小説
or 
nyuusu sutoorii
ニュース・ストーリー
(derived from 
English terms): fictional paraphrase of an historical event, merely an accident; 
-
jijitsu sh
ō
setsu 
事実小説
: autobiographies (also in the form of 
shish
ō
setsu 
私小
説
)
26
and biographies of notable people or novels based on events claimed as 
true.
27
According to Treat however, the 
genbaku bungaku
genre can also be observed by the 
authors’ point of view, as to say, the “post-nuclear generation” approach:
28
in
the
first
case
the
author
is
also
the
witness
and
identifies
problems
in
depicting
his
experience;
Treat
individuates
Hara
Tamiki,
Ō
ta
Y
ō
ko, Kurihara Sadako as the main 
representative examples. The second an
d
third
cases
concern
authors
not
directly
involved
in
the
atomic
bombings
which
is
considered
as
a
personal
(
Ō
e
Kenzabur
ō
, 
Ibuse Masuji, Hotta Yoshie) or social problem respectively (Oda Makoto).
Tachibana 
herself distinguished the literary production on the theme in two categories: one, 
derived from the German 
Trümmerliteratur
and translated as
 
“rubble literature” 
consists in works written and published soon after the World War II; the other, called 
“long-distance literature” regards works of art published after decades.
29
These three 
categories can be applied to the literary responses to 11th March 2011 too, with the 
only difference that the focus is not on the nuclear atomic bombings but on the three-
fold catastrophe of earthquake, tsunamis and nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima 
Daiichi Power Plant instead. By the way, a link between the two tragedies has just be 
underlined, as many authors remarked soon after 3/11 (one for all, the nobel prize 
Ō
e 
Kenzabur
ō
in his 
New Yorker
’s article).
30
In this regards the debate around the 
different but similar nature of genbaku 
原爆
(Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic 
bombings)
/genpatsu 
原発
(Fukushima nuclear accident)
31
broke out among scholars 
after 11th March must be kept in mind too. Although the literary works belonging to 
the 
genbaku bungaku
genre can not be found so easily in bookstores’s shelves, so do 
not the post-Fukushima literature, as highlighted also in Kimura Saeko’s first work of 
literary criticism about this topic. A critical note can be raised in regards to the title 
chosen, 
Shinsai bungaku ron 
『震災文学論』
(“A theory of the literature of the 
catastrophe): it is more likely to refer to the "literary of the catastrophe” as a canon in 
itself, since the term 
shinsai 
震災
often translated as “disaster” implies a seismic 
event; as noticed before anyway, 11th March catastrophe was a double-nature crisis 
that involved a human mismanagement at the Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant too. In 
these light the label 
shinsai-jinsai bungaku
震災・人災文学
is thought as more 
appropriated. Moreover, for these reasons the s
hinsai-jinsai bungaku
can be 
26
shish
ō
setsu
or 
watakushi
sh
ō
setsu
私小説
means, literally, “I-Novel” and represents the Japanese 
version of the German confessional literature known as 
Bildungsroman,
introduced in Japan in the 
Meiji period.
27
The main source of inspiration for this scheme was professor Takahashi’s course.
28
Tachibana refers to Treat’s 
Ground Zero
here. For further information see Treat, J. W. (1996). 
Writing Ground Zero: Japanese Literature and the Atomic Bomb
, Chicago: University Of Chicago 
Press.
29
Always refer to Tachibana (1998).
30
Ō
e, K. (2011). History Repeats. In 
New Yorker
, March 28.
31
Kimura, S. (2013) 
Shinsai bungaku ron. Atarashii nihon bungaku no tameni
. T
ō
ky
ō
: Seidosha.

---

considered as a possible translation for the “literature of the catastrophe” as a canon, 
while the literary responses to 3/11 disaster can be addressed simply as 
Fukushima 
bungaku
フクシマ文学
written in 
katakana
to emulate Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 
the sense of cities exposed to nuclear radiation. Both 
genbaku bungaku
and 
Fukushima bungaku
are to be considered as a part of the
shinsai-jinsai bungaku 
canon.