Abstract

Edward Fowler
The Buraku in Modern Japanese Literature:
Texts and Contexts

Other than Shimazaki Toson’s Hakai (The broken commandment) and, more recently, the work of Nakagami Kenji, literature of the buraku is virtually unknown, even in Japan. This article offers an overview of the literature from the turn of the century to the postwar period, paying particular attention to 1) the tropological language that “marks” the burakumin Other, who does not differ physically from “mainstream” Japanese, 2) the impact of the Korean presence in Japan on buraku discourse, and 3) the example of one burakumin writer’s attempt to transform what has primarily been a literature about burakumin into one by burakumin.

Volume 26, Number 1 (Winter 2000)
© 2000 Society for Japanese Studies