One's immediate reaction to the start this month of a new collection of war literature to mark publisher Shueisha's 85th anniversary might well be puzzlement. Why now, after more than half a century of peace in Japan, are we offered 20 volumes on literature related to war?
Perhaps the timing is in sync with the disaster mood in Japan since the March 11 quake-tsunami and subsequent nuclear accidents, in which old certainties have been upended and the future rendered opaque.
The 20 volumes of "Korekushon Senso X Bungaku" (Collection: War and Literature) are divided into four groupings: contemporary (from the Korean War to 9/11), modern (from the Sino-Japanese War of 1894 to the Occupation), thematic (voices of the dead, youth in wartime, etc.), and regional (Manchuria, the Japanese empire).