Modern literature (late 19th and 20th century)
At the dawn of the twentieth century, a bourgeois literature and a social literature with noir novels took their place. Writers were influenced by several schools, including French naturalism, and between 1900 and 1920 saw an explosion of autobiographical narratives and the affirmation of writing based on the subject's experience. Two writers mark this period: Shimei Futabatei and Ōgaï Mori. Sono omokage(His Shadow), and Heibon(Quelconque), date from 1906. Their mastery of a new language stands out. Ogaï Mori published Vita sexualis in 1909, Seinen(The Young Man) in 1911, and Wild Goose in 1915. He completed his work by writing historical accounts of the Edo period. Natsume Soseki also made a name for himself with Je suis un chat (1905) and his highly popular novel Botchan (1906), in which he depicts a society torn between tradition and modernity. Even today, this novel is one of the most widely read in Japan, and Jiro Taniguchi's recent magnificent manga adaptation Au temps de Botchan (5 volumes) has also been a huge success.
The "new sensations" movement (Shin kankaku ha)
Created in 1925, this movement attracted a number of writers who received both the vision of cinema and the violence of its ideas. Yasunari Kawabata published the Miniature Novels, while Toshikazu Koshimitsu wrote Machines. Yasunari Kawabata, who died in 1972, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, and his works are distinguished by their descriptions of Kyoto. His last novel, Tristesse et beauté (Sadness and Beauty), published in 1965, is a masterpiece, along with Pays de neige (Snow Country), Le Grondement de la montagne (The Rumbling of the Mountain ) and Les Belles endormies (Sleeping Beauties). His correspondence with Yukio Mishima is also a major work. Other authors from this period include Junichiro Tanizaki (d. 1965), whose ironic and cruel descriptions of society include Svastika, The Cat, His Master and His Two Mistresses, The Immodest Confession and In Praise of the Shadow. It was against the backdrop of the 1929 crisis and the rise of Japanese nationalism that proletarian literature emerged with Sunao Tokunaga's novels Taiyō no nai machi (The Sunless Neighborhood), telling the story of a strike that goes wrong in the city of Tokyo. A sense of injustice and denunciation of factory working conditions were developing. Repression against writers also increased. Several were imprisoned. Masuji Ibuse relates with great precision, subtly blending reality and fiction, the shipwreck of modern life in disguise in his novel Usaburō(The Castaway), published in 1955. The war years and their tragic end shook up the Japanese literary landscape and society, and Osamu Dazai's novel The Decline of a Man (1948) perfectly describes this period. As the Americans occupied the country, some novelists turned to modernity. Plays, radio and the media became essential to highlight the hope and turmoil of these years.
The post-war period
Yukio Mishima quickly emerged as the writer of the new post-war generation. The novels Confession of a Mask and The Golden Pavilion brought him to the forefront, while he created a right-wing extremist movement, a kind of militarist sect that promoted the values of an eternal Japan dictated by the way of the bushi (knights in armor). He publicly committed seppuku (ritual suicide) on November 25, 1970, by asking his lover to cut off his head, which the latter performed in an astonishingly butcherly botched act. On the day of his death, Mishima sent his publisher his novel The Decomposing Angel, which closes his Sea of Fertility tetralogy, an admirable reflection on modern Japan. Marguerite Yourcenar's tribute to the writer, Mishima ou la vision du vide, is also a magnificent text.
Nowadays..
The last forty or so years have seen the emergence of a number of historical writers, such as Ryōtarō Shiba, with a number of very precise novels that retrace Japan's journey since Meiji(Saka no ue no kumo, Cloud over the Rise, for the Japanese-Russian conflict, for example), poetic writers like Machi Tawara with Salada kinenbi(Salad's Birthday, published in 1987, this collection of tanka poems in contemporary language sold two million copies) or novels that bring back a certain nostalgia for the heart of things by Hiroyuki Itsuki (a multitude of works that describe the problems of the Japanese in their mental attitudes). Following a broadcast by the Japan Broadcasting Company (NHK) on the Silk Road, everything to do with this subject had its heyday during this period. Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1994, Kenzaburo Oe is one of the world's most celebrated recent authors. His descriptions of life in the countryside and the upbringing of a disabled child (his own son) are omnipresent in his works, which include Tell Us How to Survive Our Madness, The Game of the Century and A Quiet Existence. His collection of essays Notes d'Hiroshima, about the survivors of the atomic bomb, is also one of the major works of this militant for democracy and the abandonment of nuclear power. The mysterious universe of Abe Kobo is also noteworthy, notably La Femme des sables (1962), and, among today's authors, a tendency towards an incisive style, found in Banana Yoshimoto(Kitchen), or Ryu Murakami and his disturbing universe in Les Bébés de la consigne automatique, Miso soup or Parasites. Born in 1949, Haruki Murakami, often cited as a Nobelist, has published such best-selling works as The Ballad of the Impossible, Kafka on the Shore and the international bestseller 1Q84 (a tribute to Orwell, 1984 and 1Q84 being pronounced the same way in Japanese). His descriptions of society are reminiscent of Soseki's novels. Finally, a word about Kazuo Ishiguro, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2017. This British writer, born in Nagasaki, is best known for his books published in French by Gallimard, most recently Le Géant enfoui (The Buried Giant), or his famous novel adapted for film Les Vestiges du jour (1989), which won the Booker Prize.
