Low Down

Kōbō Abe   ( 安部 公房 ) was the most talented writer of the post war Japan , he was a play-writer, an inventor, a novelist a versatile genius in one person. His works are surreal, dark, portray hostile life,  nightmares  of the psycho in everyday life. “The Woman in the Dunes” is his flag book. A contemporary masterpiece that is worth to read.   “The woman in the Dunes” describes the problems of loneliness of personalities in modern world, the characters are looking for some means of escapism, the need of being loved, and the need to find someone to love in modern world, a developing world is depressing, namely, the most simple and basic virtues are lost and forgotten, the identity is lost. Far from perfect the  characters are surrounded by fear, the fear to live the life without regret, the fear of rejection is too strong to face the world and society. They are exile. The plot of “The Woman in the Dunes” takes place in a desert place, the dunes are far-...

Taiko Hirabayashi   ( 平林 たい子 )  was a novelist and writer, her best novels are “Best Mockery”, “I walk alone”, “Song from Underworld”, “Blind Chinese Soldiers”, “Black Notes”. Her novels were  political , she had a great political interest in Japanese political system and political future – she was rather a controversial writer. What must be mentioned, she was a member of Democratic Socialist Party . People will always acknowledge her as so-called proletarian writer of proletarian literature. Her youth was hard, her marriage was empty – emotionally dry (the divorce later), the death of her child shortly after it was born made a profound impact of the literature, her novels and short stories became more and more autobiographical. Her political fictional stories are masterpieces, the language, the metaphors, descriptions made it unique and out of censorship. She was a forerunner of proletarian literature which was raw to the winter bones, the female s portrayed in her...

Masuji Ibuse was a Japanese writer, the author of many novels, he did not  graduated   Waseda University in Tokyo due to sexual harassment by one of the gay professor, his field of interest was French Literature. He was very attached to Fukuyama , he missed the place while he was studying in Tokyo . The publication of “Black Rain” changed his career forever, he was recognized, admired. “Black Rain” takes us back to Hiroshima , it tells its tragedy, the tragedy of people who died and those who survived and had to live in contaminated city. Their life was lethally endangered by acute radiation syndrome. The plot concentrates on the past and a young girl – Yasuko as well as her guardians; Mr. Shigematsu and Mr. Shigeko, both men tried to engage a poor girl, unsuccessfully – no one wants her, she is believed to have traces of acute radiation syndrome. The narrator Mr Shizuma may be perceived as a very strange character, namely, he is looking for history or rather he wants to tur...

In ‘In a Grove’ Ryūnosuke presents a genre that revolutionized Japanese culture, it was called modernism. It restores to Japanese history, its origins. The book begins with a thrill and crime, namely, a  samurai  had been killed, stabbed in the chest, the wood cutter found him and reported a crime. The crime leads to useless speech of what is and what is not an objective outlook of crime. The truth is subjective, why and who killed the samurai – remains and open question … what is known is the fact that the samurai must have fought, unfortunately, there is no weapon, his horse is missing and there are a blood pool all around.  So goes the gossip, some people saw a couple with a sword and a palomino horse, shortly after the samurai died they disappeared. The young woman who has been travelling with a man is a missing 19-years old Massago – a wife of a samurai – Kanazawa . The old woman who testified, cries for her finding, she claims to be her mother. The man she...

The novel  concentrates  on the diverse features of a man and a woman,  Kanoko's  prose and fiction were exceptional, her novels present female characters, their life which is irreversibly twisted with the senses of nature and the world of art, the beauty is perverse, its intensity leads it to self-destruction, the pleasure had to be immense, almost perpetual as if it was immortal. The author's  life was a  torrent of unhappiness, pain and grief, she was not expecting goodness to happen, she stopped believing in a twist of fate, for that reason, she started portraying suffering, destruction, sadness that features seemed to be the most natural, something normal, not out of ordinary. According to the author the homosexual relationship is a normal act between two people, it has always been, yet, no one spoke openly about it, it still rarely occurs, people speak, it is not a talk. The taboos made her novels so interesting, so fascinating, she understo...

Ryūnosuke Akutagawa is called the father of Japanese novels and short stories, his  inborn  writing talent was simply brilliant. He lived short, he died at the age of 35 but his life was rich and vibrant, his name is having an unusual translation “the son of a dragon” - indeed, he was a real “literary dragon”. His education consisted mostly of Chinese literature and works of Mori Ogai and Natsume Soseki. He loved reading, writing, after being admitted to Tokyo Imperial University he started writing short stories, he studied English Language and English Literature. He was in love in Yayoi Yoshida, yet, the relationship was forbidden, later on he married with his friend -  Fumi Tsukamoto , the couple had three children, each of them was very versatile and well-educated. In his novel he presents Japan assimilated with Western patterns and culture, Japan which is open to new, limitless ideas. The image of women in his works were always portrayed as mother; they were ve...

He is the master of modern Japanese  literature  more important than Natsume Soseki, his works present the world of obscenity, vulgarity, filled with brutal sex which becomes the destructive addiction. To contrast the world of depression he also writes mildly about family, the structure of the family that is changing, the archetype of Japanese family is forced to ease. The society of XX century is dynamic, family acts out the same. The frequent theme is fame- fatal . His personal life was far from happy one, he married relatively early, the marriage ended quickly, shortly the first child was born, he left the family, depressed and with an emotional breakdown he started writing again, he books become dull – the only thing that juices out is sadomasochistic description leading to darkness, time after time his characters ‘torment and torture” themselves in self-destruction. Surprisingly, reading Japanese literature we do not perceive his books as much autobiographical as Nat...