ABSTRACT
KUMIKO SAITO
Reframing Modern Japanese Literature: Translation and Science Fiction in Meiji-Era Japan
This essay investigates emergent notions of literature and science through translated texts of science fiction in the early Meiji era, including Shin miraiki (1868), Kondō Makoto’s Japanese translation of Anno 2065 (1865) by Pieter Harting, and Hachijūnichikan sekai isshū (1878), Kawashima Chūnosuke’s Japanese translation of Jules Verne’s novel Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours (1873). These translated texts about advanced societies and technologies precede notions of science fiction as a genre, or even science and literature, and thereby undermine established ideas about modern Japanese literature and language.
Volume 49, Number 1 (Winter 2023)
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