Discussion on Hakujitu No Sho in Manchuria Romance

The Journal of Japanese Language Literature Studies > Volume 1(1); 2014 > Article Article Border Crossings: The Journal of Japanese-Language Literature Studies 2014;1(1): 105-121. doi: https://doi.org/10.22628/bcjjl.2014.1.1.105 『満洲浪曼』における｢白日の書｣への一考察 Tao LIN 北京師範大学外文学院日文系 Correspondence Tao LIN ,Email: lintao0412@aliyun.com Published online: 30 June 2014. Copyright ©2019 The Global Institute for Japanese Studies, Korea University This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. ABSTRACT Yokota Fumiko’s novel, Hakujitsu No Sho, was a candidate for the third Akutagawa Prize in the first half of 1936. Two years later in 1938, it was published in the opening issue of the Japanese literary and art magazine Manchuria Romantic, which was influential during the Manchukuo period. However, in China this novel has not been adequately researched in academic circles. Centered on the relationship between Hakujitsu No Sho and Manchuria Romantic, this paper explains the essence of the novel and the literary attitude of the author by analyzing the text in detail. Through this lesbian narrative, the social anxiety of the 1930s in Japan is symbolically represented and, at the same time, Yokota Fumiko hinted at her veiled rebellion against society and the times. Progressing from a young Leftist literary girl to a colleague of Japanese Romanticism after eight years in “Manchukuo”, although it was hard for Yokota Fumiko to avoid following the trend, there is a clear difference between the “romance” in her works and the “grand romance” advocated by Kitamura Kennjirou, the editor of Manchuria Romantic. The “romance” in her works has always maintained a certain distance from the center of literary world and embodied her rebellion against the times