Book News: Japanese Modernism's roots in Buddhism

The Awakening of Modern Japanese Fiction:
Path Literature and an Interpretation of Buddhism

BY MICHIHIRO AMA

SUNY Press, 2021

ISBN: 978-1-4384-8141-8 hardback

ISBN: 978-1-4384-8142-5 paperback

https://www.sunypress.edu/p-7022-the-awakening-of-modern-japanes.aspx

The Awakening of Modern Japanese Fiction is the first book to treat the literary practices of certain major modern Japanese writers as Buddhist practices, and to read their work as Buddhist literature. Its distinctive contribution is its focus on modern literature and, importantly, modern Buddhism, which Michihiro Ama presents both as existing in continuity with the historical Buddhist tradition and as having unique features of its own. Ama corrects the dominant perception in which the Christian practice of confession has been accepted as the primary informing source of modern Japanese prose literature, arguing instead that the practice has always been a part of Shin Buddhist culture. 

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Focusing on personal fiction, this volume explores the works of literary figures and Buddhist priests who, challenged by the modern development of Japan, turned to Buddhism in a variety of ways and used literature as a vehicle for transforming their sense of selfhood. Writers discussed include Natsume Sōseki, Tayama Katai, Shiga Naoya, Kiyozawa Manshi, and Akegarasu Haya. By bringing Buddhism out of the shadows of early twentieth-century Japanese literature and elucidating its presence in both individual authors’ lives and the genre of autobiographical fiction, The Awakening of Modern Japanese Fiction demonstrates a more nuanced understanding of the role of Buddhism in the development of Japanese modernity.

Michihiro Ama is Karashima Tsukasa Associate Professor of Japanese Language and Culture at the University of Montana. He is the author of Immigrants to the Pure Land: The Modernization, Acculturation, and Globalization of Shin Buddhism, 1898–1941.