Translating Mount Fuji: Modern Japanese Fiction and the Ethics of Identity

Washburn begins with Ueda's Ugetsu monogatari (Tales of Moonlight & Rain) & its preoccupation with the distant past, a sense of loss, & the connection between values & identity. He then considers the use of narrative realism & the metaphor of translation in Soseki's Sanshiro; the relationship between ideology & selfhood in Ogai's Seinen; Yokomitsu Riichi's attempt to synthesize the national & the cosmopolitan; Ooka Shohei's post-World War II representations of the ethical & spiritual crises confronting his age; & Mishima's innovative play with the aesthetics of the inauthentic & the artistry of kitsch.

Washburn's brilliant analysis teases out common themes concerning the illustration of moral & aesthetic values, the crucial role of autonomy & authenticity in defining notions of culture, the impact of cultural translation on ideas of nation & subjectivity, the ethics of identity, & the hybrid quality of modern Japanese society. He pinpoints the persistent anxiety that influenced these authors' writings, a struggle to translate rhetorical forms of Western literature while preserving elements of the pre-Meiji tradition. 

A unique combination of intellectual history & critical literary analysis, Translating Mt. Fuji recounts the evolution of a conflict that inspired remarkable literary experimentation & achievement.

Dennis Washburn is Professor of Asian & Middle Eastern Languages & Literatures & Comparative Literature at Dartmouth College. He is the translator of Temple of the Wild Geese...