Wagō Ryōichi’s net-poetry and the revolutionary «shared literature»

Although the Fukushima literary scenario offers different approaches to the study of dystopia and trauma, works of literary criticism linking these subject matters are still few in number. This article aims to turn scholars’ attention to the Fukushima disasters and offers a critical analysis of the literary response to the disasters beginning with a discussion of Wagō Ryōichi’s works and his poetical tweets. The purpose is to suggest new study guidelines concerning the literature of the catastrophe as a genre itself, through an investigation of the use of literary language as a vehicle of memory and, by extension, the social role of literature in the time of catastrophe. Wagō’s works also offer the chance to investigate the relationship between literature and social networks. In so far as the success of Wagō’s net-poetry raises concerns about the possibilities of emergent social networks to overcome trauma in real time, Wagō’s net-poetry, as a new type of literary expression, also contributes to the literary debate about the globalization of literature in the context of new media technologies, where globality can be obtained with just one click