ABSTRACT
TYLER WALKER
Battle in the Village: The Agrarian Ideology of Opposition in the Early Showa Period
Efforts by Japanese proletarian writers to forge class consciousness among urban industrial workers during the 1920s and 1930s are well documented. Long overlooked, however, are writers who viewed rural laborers as potential engines of revolutionary change. This article examines self-styled agrarian author Inuta Shigeru (1891–1957), who took up literature as a weapon against fascism, imperialism, capitalism, and urban-centric Marxism. It looks closely at Inuta’s journal Nōmin(The farmer, 1927–33) and his suppressed novel Mura ni tatakau(Battle in the village, 1929). It also addresses Inuta’s conflict with entrenched proletarian writers, which determined his legacy for nearly a century.
Volume 49, Number 1 (Winter 2023)
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