The International Conference on Japan & Japan Studies 2016

The International Conference on Japan & Japan Studies 2016

The International Conference on Japan & Japan Studies 2016

The literary responses to Fukushima disaster appeared in the last few years
highlighted the similarities with Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombing
experiences as long as both tragedies were caused by an arguable usage of nuclear
power. What is remarkable, is that a seismically active area like Japan subjected to
earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions ever since has not ever taken a stand on
the “literature of the catastrophe” in itself. While the literature about Shoah got a
foothold as Holocaust novel, the Japanese genbaku bungaku was instead refused by
the Japanese bundan and by hibakusha themselves sounding a critical note for the
literary value of the testimonial accounts. Nowadays, the increasing number of postFukushima

literary works brought to the fore the need to reconsider the traditional
literary canon to revalue a production, the one regarding catastrophe, which especially
in Japan found literary expressions since the dawn of time: Kamo no Chōmei, Terada
Torahiko, Akutagawa Ryūnosuke are just a few of the authors involved in the process
of transposing into words the trauma related to disasters that occurred in the country
and the necessary efforts to overcome them. This brief paper provides an excursus of
the critical debate concerning the relation between literature and canon to define the
literary responses to catastrophe. On one hand, it underlines the continuity of genbaku
bungaku themes, on the other hand, it reveals the innovative character of the newborn
Fukushima bungaku in terms of representing trauma not only in poetic and narrative
forms but also on social media.

Veronica De Pieri