Tag - takiji-kobayashi

 
 

TAKIJI KOBAYASHI

Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
May 23, 2023
Hell is a crab cannery ship in industrial Japan. The way out? Russia.
Stories of brutality from the era of industrialization are testament to the sacrifice of former generations, sacrifices that resulted in what we take for granted today.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jun 3, 2017
Is Japan slipping into prewar politics?
"The recent flurry of legislation, including a proposed anti-conspiracy amendment to the organized crime law, recalls prewar Japan," Kobe University criminal law scholar Hirofumi Uchida told the Asahi Shimbun in an interview in March.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jul 23, 2016
'For Dignity, Justice, and Revolution': Voices from Japan's prewar labor movement
In 2008, a previously obscure novella by Takiji Kobayashi entered the best-seller lists in Japan. "The Cannery Boat," a tale of worker exploitation originally published in 1929, acquired new resonance in the fallout from the global economic meltdown. Kobayashi features prominently in "For Dignity, Justice, and Revolution: An Anthology of Japanese Proletarian Literature."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 13, 2013
The politics behind Japan's modern era of proletarian art
"Art and Literature in Japan 1926-1936" follows the close of the Taisho Era (1912-1926), which was characterized by democracy, artistic experimentation and widespread social self-absorptions by the citizenry in new fashions such as the "beach pajama" outfits of "modern" girls. The successive Showa Era (1926-1989) inherited this optimism, though seismic shifts for the arts and society in general were brought about as Japan embarked on its Fifteen Year War beginning in 1931. For the arts, these years saw a rocking back and forth between freedoms and restrictions, the latter winning out.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / TELLING LIVES
Oct 18, 2013
Norma Field, champion of Japan's leftist literature, retires — but not from anti-nuclear activism
A colleague once told me he didn't want to be attached to lost causes,' says academic Norma Field. 'I've never understood thinking like that. The bright spots in human history are so few. We should embrace and magnify them.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Sep 14, 2013
Making Kobayashi's works sound as if written today
For most readers, Japanese literature may suggest romantic/erotic works by Nagai Kafu, elegantly classical and humorously or sinisterly "kinky" fiction by Tanizaki, or coolly stylish contemporary works by Haruki Murakami. For such readers, this volume will come as a shock — both refreshing and depressing.

Longform

Later this month, author Shogo Imamura will open Honmaru, a bookstore that allows other businesses to rent its shelves. It's part of a wave of ideas Japanese booksellers are trying to compete with online spaces.
The story isn't over for Japan's bookstores