Reading Okinawa

Haitai! My name is Kasumi Sminkey. I’m a long-term resident of Japan who loves Okinawa and modern Okinawan literature.

This site aims to introduce Okinawan literature to general readers in English. With the help of my students at Okinawa International University, I hope to gradually provide more and more reading guides for various short stories and novels. I’ll also introduce some works written by mainland Japanese writers who deal with Okinawa-related themes.

In addition, I hope to provide resources, links, and various information about Okinawa literature, translations, and criticism—focusing primarily on information in English. Don’t hesitate to drop me a line for your comments or suggestions.

Click the links in the top right corner (under “Reading Okinawa”) to see reviews, summaries, and other information concerning the authors or works listed.

After clicking on an author’s name, you’ll see links to their stories under the Sub Menu to the right.


FLASHCARDS

For those of you reading the stories in Japanese, I strongly recommend you join my Okinawa Literature group on Quizlet by clicking here. Flashcards, which will help you learn the difficult vocabulary for many of the stories, are provided.


Below is a list of translations and criticism available in English. Please let me know of any English resources not listed here.


Okinawan Literature in English Translation


Okinawa: Two Postwar Novellas

Novels by Oshiro Tatsuhiro and Higashi Mineo
Translated with an Introduction by Steve Rabson
Institute of East Asian Studies
University of California, Berkely, 1989

• Introduction: History of Okinawa, focussing on the early post-war period

• English translations of the two novels that won the Akutagawa Prize for literature:
  
  Cocktail Party (1967) by Ōshiro Tatsuhiro
  Child of Okinawa (1972) by Higashi Mineo

• English translations of poetry by Serei Kunio, Nakamura Kare, Tsukayama Issui, Yamanokuchi Baku, and Takara Ben

• English translations of the following fiction:
  Officer Ukuma (1922) by Ikemiyagi Sekiho;
  Memoirs of a Declining Ryukyūan Woman (1932) by Kushi Fusako;
  Mr. Saito of Heaven Building (1936) by Yamanokuchi Baku;
  Dark Flowers (1955) by Kishaba Jun;
  Turtleback Tombs (1966) by Ōshiro Tatsuhiro;
  Bones (1973) by Shima Tsuyoshi;
  The Silver Motorcycle (1977) by Nakahara Shin;
  Love Letter from L.A. (1978) by Shimokawa Hiroshi;
  Love Suicide at Kamaara (1984) by Yoshida Sueko;
  Will o’ the Wisp (1985) by Yamanoha Nobuko;
  Droplets (1997) by Medoruma Shun.

• Essays by Takara Ben, Kathy Foley and Nobuko Miyama Ochner, Ōshiro Sadatoshi, Frank Steward and Katsunori Yamazato

• English translations of the following fiction:
  Round-trip over the Ocean by Sakiyama Tami;
  The Dog Snatcher by Nakawaka Naoko;
  Mabuigumi by Medoruma Shun;
  Riding a Bus in a Castle Town by Ōshiro Tatsuhiro;
  The Wild Boar That George Gunned Down by Matayoshi Eiki;
  The Paper Plane at the Empire State Building by Nagado Eikichi

• Poetry by Yamanoguchi Baku, Kawamitsu Shinichi, Christopher Drake, Wesley Iwao Ueunten, Yonaha Mikio, Makiminato Tokuzo, and Takara Ben

• English translations of the following plays:
  Gods Beyond the Sea by Ōshiro Tatsuhiro;
  Possessed by Love, Thwarted by the Bell by Tamagusuku Chokun;
  The Cocktail Party by Ōshiro Tatsuhiro.

• English translations of poetry by Tōma Hiroko, Kiyota Masanobu, Mabuni Chōshin, and Yamanokuchi Baku

• English translations of the following fiction and drama:

• Ground-breaking collection of critical essays, focusing on the most important Okinawan authors, while providing a comprehensive framework for understanding the entire genre.

• Essays include the following:
  
  “The color orange in Yamagusuku Seichū’s Okinawan fiction.”
  “Subaltern identity in Taishō Japan.”
  “Marching forward, glancing backward: language and nostalgia in prewar Okinawan fiction.”
  “Ōshiro Tatsuhiro and constructions of a mythic Okinawa.”
  “Postreversion fiction and Medoruma Shun.”
  “Darkness visible in Sakiyama Tami’s island stories.”

• A review of the book can be found here, in The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 70, Number 2, May 2011.

• A comprehensive and thoroughly researched analysis of Medoruma Shun's fiction, this book is a must-read for students and scholars interested in Medoruma's work. As far as I know, this is the only book written in English that critically analyzes Medoruma's work.

• The book draws on research on second-generation Holocaust survivors in order to shed light on how Medoruma's fiction addresses the question of how memories of the Battle of Okinawa have been passed down to later generations.

• Chapters include the following: (1) Simmering awareness; (2) Vicarious imagination and the "Magical Real"; (3) Subjective and objective fiction: Medoruma Shun's "Spirit Stuffing" and Ōshiro Tatsuhiro's "Island of the Gods"; (4) Critical "Sentimentalism" and conscious engagement in "Tree of Butterflies"; (5) Multisensory memory and sites of trauma in Forest at the Back of My Eye.

• A fascinating discussion of Japan’s experience of the US occupation after World War II. Molasky analyzes mainland Japanese and Okinawan literature in order to provide a deeper understanding of the Occupation as lived experience.

• Chapters include the following:
  
  “Introduction: Burned-out ruins and barbed-wire fences.” [A detailed history of the occupation]
  
  “Roads to no-man’s land.” [Includes an analysis of Ōshiro Tatsuhiro’s Cocktail Party]
  
  “A base town in the literary imagination.” [Discusses Higashi Mineo’s An Okinawan Boy and the remaking of Koza]
  
  “A darker shade of difference.” [Discusses representations of blacks in Japanese literature]
  
  “Female floodwalls.” [Discusses prostitution and their depiction in Japanese fiction]
  
  “Ambivalent allegories.” [Examines works by three lesser-known female writers: Sono Ayako, Hiroike Akiko, and Hirabayashi Taiko.
  
  “The occupier within.” [Focuses on Ōe Kenzaburō’s “Human Sheep” and Nosaka Akiyuki’s “American Hijiki”]
  
  “Epilogue: Occupation literature in the post-Vietnam era.”

My Other Pages: