East Meets West, then Gives It Back: The Fate of Pure Literature in a Global Age

Matthew C. Strecher

Matthew C. Strecher Sophia University, Tokyo

Keywords: subjectivity, junbungaku, shōsetsu, global literature

Abstract

As part of the early Meiji (1868-1912) project of constructing a mod- ern “subject” to populate the newly-fashioned, Western-style nation- state, late nineteenth-century Japan’s literary artists enthusiastically engaged in the exploration of the individual self. Borrowing as their template the European realistic novel, they succeeded not only in es- tablishing the modern shōsetsu, but an equally new language in which to write such novels. Their work came to be known as junbungaku, or “pure literature.” Written by, for, and about Japanese subjects, junbun- gaku has come to be understood as a quintessentially Japanese mode of artistic expression.
This began to change in 1979 with the début of contemporary nov- elist Murakami Haruki. While engaging Western models in the for- mation of his literary landscape, Murakami rejected the “by/for/about Japanese” strictures of junbungaku, exploring a more global subject grounded in a hybrid conception of that subject as both Eastern and Western. Having thus encountered “the West,” Murakami then “gave it back” as a new, hybrid type of fiction that eschews polarizing con- cepts like “East” and “West,” emerging instead as a truly global form of literature. While scorned by some traditionalists as the “death of jun- bungaku,” Murakami’s work has also been heralded as a rebirth for se- rious global literature.

Author Biography

Matthew C. Strecher, Sophia University, Tokyo

Professor of Japanese Literature and Chair of Liberal Arts at Sophia University in Tokyo. He specializes in con- temporary literature and genre studies, and is recognized as a leading expert on Murakami Haruki. His major publications include Dan- ces with sheep: The quest for identity in the fiction of Murakami Haruki (2002), Haruki Murakami’s The wind-up bird chronicle: A reader’s guide (2002), and The forbidden worlds of Haruki Murakami (2014).

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