Raise your voice in song! The Origins of the New Japanese Literature Association A Translation of Miyamoto Yuriko’s Literary Call to Arms

Abstract

This translation of Miyamoto Yuriko’s (1899–1951) 1946 essay constitutes a unique moment in the melding of politics and literature in Japan. Written in the heady days of immediate post-defeat Japan, the essay highlights the strategy of a profoundly optimistic literary left to win the hearts and minds of the Japanese masses. At the same time, however, it also hints at the complicated problem of how to deal with the large numbers of people – intellectuals and writers in particular – who abandoned their affiliations with the communist movement during the war and embraced the militarist regime. Show more