Ryūichi Akizawa and Orientalism -- China Fantasies of Taishō Japan (Japanese China Classics Anthology)

Author: (Japanese) Nishihara Daisuke, translated by Zhao Yi
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Features: This book takes Kafu Nagai as a case study to examine Japanese Orientalist discourse centered around the Taisho era. Orientalism emerged in the Western world in the late 18th century. Edward Said, an American comparative literature scholar, published "Orientalism" in 1978, sharply critiquing how Western literary, artistic, and academic works had adopted Orientalist perspectives, which also influenced modern Japan's views on other Asian countries, thereby shaping the Japanese perception of China. The author will delve into this book to analyze in detail how and how Japanese Orientalist discourse developed and spread. Although Kafu Nagai was a world-renowned literary giant, his works related to China only began to attract academic attention recently. Nagai visited mainland China twice in 1918 and 1926, writing over a dozen travel essays, novels, and short stories. The "China Appreciation" pioneered by Nagai once became fashionable and had a significant impact on contemporary Japanese writers such as Kafu Nagai, Sadamu Sato, and Kikuchi Kojirō. However, unfortunately, among Japanese scholars who study modern Japanese literature, few are proficient in Chinese. Based on Said's theory of Orientalism, this book not only analyzes the Orientalist discourse in Nagai's works but also extensively explores materials from both Japan and China, providing as thorough an examination as possible of Nagai's two trips to China.