For Japanophiles fascinated with the intersections between high and low culture, “A Kamigata Anthology: Literature from Japan’s Metropolitan Centers, 1600-1750” is the long-awaited completion of an ambitious project from the University of Hawaii Press. Its aim was to collect the best of urban literature from Japan’s three main city centers: Kyoto, Osaka and Tokyo.
A Kamigata Anthology: Literature from Japan’s Metropolitan Centers, 1600-1750, edited by Sumie Jones and Adam L. Kern with Kenji Watanabe.544 pagesUNIVERSITY OF HAWAII PRESS, Anthology.
The urban literature collected across multiple publications is gritty and concerned with what entertains the common people, a marked contrast to the elevated, classical traditions of Japanese literature. There are, however, important overlaps in subject matter and genre.