Japanese Perspectives on Kazuo Ishiguro

ISBN-13: 9783031249976 / Angielski / Twarda / 2024

Takayuki Shonaka; Takahiro Mimura; Shinya Morikawa

Opis

This collection of essays offers new perspectives from Japan on Nobel Prize–winning author Kazuo Ishiguro. It analyses the Japanese-born British author from the vantage point of his birthplace, showing how Ishiguro remains greatly indebted to Japanese culture and sensibilities. The influence of Japanese literature and film is evident in Ishiguro’s early novels as he deals with the problem of the atomic bomb and Japan’s war responsibility, yet his later works also engage with folk tales and the modern popular culture of Japan. The chapters consider a range of Japanese influences on Ishiguro and adaptations of Ishiguro’s work, including literary, cinematic and animated representations. The book makes use of newly archived drafts of Ishiguro’s manuscripts at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas to explore the origins of his oeuvre. It also offers sharp, new examinations of Ishiguro’s work in relation to memory studies, especially in relation to Japan.  ​ 

Spis treści

 Introduction (Takayuki Shonaka, Takahiro Mimura and Shinya Morikawa)

Part I Early Japanese Influences

1  Blithe Spirit: Young Ishiguro’s Contact with Japanese Children’s Culture through Shogakukan’s Graded Educational Magazines (Motoko Sugano).

2 Osamu Tezuka’s Astro Boy and Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun (Ria Taketomi)

Part II Ghosts and Stereotypes

3 Constructing Japan with Stereotypes: An Analysis of Kazuo Ishiguro’s ‘A Family Supper’ (Yoshiki Tajiri)

4 Envisioned ‘Ghosts Project’: Kazuo Ishiguro’s Imaginary Nagasaki (Megumi Kato)

5 The Hidden Ghost Story: Ishiguro, Ugetsu, and Troubled English Belief (Anni Shen)

Part III  War and Responsibilities

6 ‘The Shame of Being on the Wrong Side of History’: Defeat and the Failures of Masculinities in An Artist of the Floating World and The Remains of the Day (Kunio Shin)

7 Between the A-bombing and Responsibilities for World War II: Changes in the Themes of Ishiguro’s Early Novels (Masako Matsuda)

8  The Representation of the Sino-Japanese War and Cosmopolitanism in Empire of the Sun, When We Were Orphans, and My Shanghai, 1942-1946 (Erica Aso) 

 Part IV  Creative Development

 9 Tracing the Origin of Kazuo Ishiguro through His Early Song Lyrics (Takayuki Shonaka)

10 ‘The Remains’ of Charlotte Brontë in the Early Novels of Kazuo Ishiguro (Hiromi Nagara)

11 The Evolution of Stevens towards The Remains of the Day (Shinya Morikawa).

Part V Past and Future

12 Monumental Moments: Narrative Complicity in the Novels of Kazuo Ishiguro (Takahiro Mimura)

13 Nonhuman/Posthuman Aspects in Kazuo Ishiguro’s New Millennium Novels (Hiroshi Ikezono)

O autorze

Takayuki Shonaka is Professor in English Literature at Kyoto Women’s University, Japan. His research and teaching expertise are in British and American Culture, Language, and Literature. He is the author of Kazuo Ishiguro: ‘Nihon’ to ‘Igirisu’ no Hazama kara [Kazuo Ishiguro: From Between ‘Japan’ and ‘England’] (2011). 

Takahiro Mimura is Professor in English at Chiba Institute of Technology, Japan. He studies contemporary English novels especially from the perspective of memory. He is the author of Kazuo Ishiguro Wo Yomu [Reading Kazuo Ishiguro] (2022) and Kioku To Zinbungaku [Memory and the Humanities] (2021).

Shinya Morikawa is Professor in English Literature at Hokkai-Gakuen University, Japan. His research interests include contemporary British fiction, international migration novels, and literary stylistics. He is a co-editor of Kazuo Ishiguro No Shisen: Kioku, Souzou, Kyoushu [Kazuo Ishiguro’s Gaze: Memory, Imagination, Nostalgia] (2018).

 

 

Blurb

This collection of essays offers new perspectives from Japan on Nobel Prize–winning author Kazuo Ishiguro. It analyses the Japanese-born British author from the vantage point of his birthplace, showing how Ishiguro remains greatly indebted to Japanese culture and sensibilities. The influence of Japanese literature and film is evident in Ishiguro’s early novels as he deals with the problem of the atomic bomb and Japan’s war responsibility, yet his later works also engage with folk tales and the modern popular culture of Japan. The chapters consider a range of Japanese influences on Ishiguro and adaptations of Ishiguro’s work, including literary, cinematic and animated representations. The book makes use of newly archived drafts of Ishiguro’s manuscripts at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas to explore the origins of his oeuvre. It also offers sharp, new examinations of Ishiguro’s work in relation to memory studies, especially in relation to Japan.  ​ ​

Takayuki Shonaka is Professor in English Literature at Kyoto Women’s University, Japan. His research and teaching expertise are in British and American Culture, Language, and Literature. He is the author of Kazuo Ishiguro: ‘Nihon’ to ‘Igirisu’ no Hazama kara [Kazuo Ishiguro: From Between ‘Japan’ and ‘England’] (2011). 

Takahiro Mimura is Professor in English at Chiba Institute of Technology, Japan. He studies contemporary English novels especially from the perspective of memory. He is the author of Kazuo Ishiguro Wo Yomu [Reading Kazuo Ishiguro] (2022) and Kioku To Zinbungaku [Memory and the Humanities] (2021).

Shinya Morikawa is Professor in English Literature at Hokkai-Gakuen University, Japan. His research interests include contemporary British fiction, international migration novels, and literary stylistics. He is a co-editor of Kazuo Ishiguro No Shisen: Kioku, Souzou, Kyoushu [Kazuo Ishiguro’s Gaze: Memory, Imagination, Nostalgia] (2018).