Acknowledgements and Sources
In the thirteen lucky years I have lived in Tokyo, many, many people have helped me and, in many, many ways, contributed to this book, most of all my family: Izumi, George, Emi, Shigeko and Daisuke.
However, in the preparation and research for the actual writing of this book, I would like to pay particular thanks to the following people for their help, their knowledge and their time:
Firstly, my dear agent William Miller, along with Sawa Junzo, Hamish Macaskill, Peter Thompson, and all the staff of the English Agency Japan. Also Koyama Michio, Hayakawa Hiroshi, Chida Hiroyuki, Yoshida Tomohiro, Hamaguchi Tamako, Nagayoshi Yuki, Edward Seidensticker, Donald Richie, David Mitchell, Mark Schreiber, Michael Gardiner, Justin McCurry, Koizumi Atsuko and Matsumura Sayuri.
In London, I would like to thank Stephen Page, Lee Brackstone, Angus Cargill, Anna Pallai, Anne Owen, Trevor Horwood, and all the staff of Faber and Faber; in Yorkshire, my mother and father; in New York, Sonny Mehta, Diana Coglianese, and Leyla Aker; in Paris, François Guérif, Agnès Guery, Jeanne Guyon, Daniel Lemoine, and all the staff of Payot & Rivages, and Jean-Pierre Deloux; in Milan, Luca Formenton, Marco Tropea, Cristina Ricotti, Marco Pensante, Seba Pezzani, and all the staff of il Saggiatore, and Elio De Capitani; in Munich, Juergen Kill and Susanne Fink of Liebeskind, Markus Naegele of Heyne, and Peter Torberg.
I would also like to thank Shimoyama Susumu of my Japanese publisher Bungei Shunju for his advice and support, and finally, but most of all, my editor Nagashima Shunichiro, who gave me the confidence and help to finally begin writing this book. Shunichiro provided and translated materials which otherwise would have been beyond me and then diligently and incisively edited both the English and Japanese manuscripts. In short, any qualities this book might have, are his. The faults, as ever, are all mine.
FICTION
An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro (Faber, 1986)
‘The Camelia’ by Satomi Ton, translated by Edward Seidensticker, from Modern Japanese Stories (Charles E. Tuttle, 1962)
Childhood Years by Tanizaki Jun’ichiro, translated by Paul McCarthy (Kodansha International, 1988)
The Essential Akutagawa Ryunosuke, edited by Seiji M. Lippit (Marsilio Publishers, 1999)
The Girl I Left Behind by Endo Shusaku, translated by Mark Williams (New Directions, 1994)
A Gray Moon by Shiga Naoya, translated by Lane Dunlop (Charles E. Tuttle, 1992)
‘The Hole’ by Kuroshima Denji, from A Flock of Swirling Crows & Other Proletarian Writings, edited and translated by Zeljko
Cipris (University of Hawaii Press, 2005)
‘The Idiot’ by Sakaguchi Ango, translated by George Saito, from Modern Japanese Stories (Charles E. Tuttle, 1962)
The Journey by Osaragi Jiro, translated by Ivan Morris (Knopf, 1960)
The Legend of Gold and Other Stories by Ishikawa Jun, edited and translated by William J. Tyler (University of Hawaii Press, 1998)
‘Militarized Streets’ by Kuroshima Denji, from A Flock of Swirling Crows & Other Proletarian Writings, edited and translated by Zeljko Cipris (University of Hawaii Press, 2005)
Musashi by Yoshikawa Eiji, translated by Charles S. Terry (Kodansha International, 1981)
Nonresistance City’ by Maruo Suehiro, from Ultra-Gash Inferno, translated by James Havoc and Shinkado Takako (Creation Books, 2001)
Occupation by John Toland (Doubleday, 1987)
One Man’s Justice by Yoshimura Akira, translated by Mark Ealey (Canongate, 2003)
Palm-of-the Hand Stories by Kawabata Yasunari, translated by Lane Dunlop and J. Martin Holman (North Point Press, 1988)
‘A Quiet Obsession’ by Kyoka Izumi, from In Light of Shadows, edited and translated by Charles Shiro Inouye (University of Hawaii Press, 2005)
The Saga of Dazai Osamu by Phyllis I. Lyons (Stanford University Press, 1985)
‘Sakurajima’ by Umezaki Haruo, translated by D. E. Mills, from The Catch and Other War Stories, edited by Saeki Shooichi (Kodansha International, 1981)
The Scavengers by Kafu Nagai, translated by Edward Seidensticker (Stanford University Press, 1965)
Self Portraits by Dazai Osamu, translated and introduced by Ralph F. McCarthy (Kodansha International, 1991)
‘Shitamachi’ by Hayashi Fumiko, translated by Ivan Morris, from Modern Japanese Stories (Charles E. Tuttle, 1962)
Soldiers Alive by Ishikawa Tatsuzō, translated by Zeljko Cipris (University of Hawaii Press, 2003)
‘The Sound of Hammering’ by Dazai Osamu, translated by James O’Brien, from Crackling Mountain and Other Stories (Charles E. Tuttle, 1989)
A Strange Tale from East of the River by Kafu Nagai, translated by Edward Seidensticker (Stanford University Press, 1965)
Tales of Moonlight and Rain by Ueda Akinari, translated by Hamada Kengi (Columbia University Press, 1972)
This Outcast Generation by Takeda Taijun, translated by Shibuya Yusaburo and Sanford Goldstein (Charles E. Tuttle, 1967)
Wheat and Soldiers by Hino Ashihei, translated by Ishimoto Shidzue (Farrar & Rinehart, 1939)
Where are the Victors? by Donald Richie (Charles E. Tuttle, 1956; republished as This Scorching Earth, 1986)
A Wife in Musashino by Ōoka Shōhei, translated by Dennis Washburn (University of Michigan, 2004)
NON-FICTION
Embracing Defeat by John Dower (W. W. Norton, 1999)
Geisha, Harlot, Strangler, Star by William Johnston (Columbia University Press, 2005)
Japan at War: An Oral History by Haruko Taya Cook and Theodore F. Cook (The New Press, 1992)
Japan Diary by Mark Gayn (Charles E. Tuttle, 1981)
Japan’s Longest Day by the Pacific War Research Society (Kodansha, 1968)
Keiji Ichidai: Hiratsuka Hachibei no Shōwa Jiken-shi by Sasaki Yoshinobu (Sankei Shimbunsha; Nisshin-Hodo Shuppanbu, 1980)
Nippon no Seishin Kantei, edited by Fukushima Akira, Nakata Osamu, Ogi Sadataka, Uchimura Yushi and Yoshimasu Shufu (Misuzu Shobo, 1973)
The Other Nuremberg by Arnold C. Brackman (William Morrow, 1987)
Oyabun: Nippon Outlaw Retsudan, edited by Jitsuwa Jidai Henshubu (Yosensha, 2005)
The Phoenix Cup: Some Notes on Japan in 1946 by John Morris (The Crescent Press, 1947)
The Police in Occupation Japan by Christopher Aldous (Routledge, 1997)
Senso to Kodomotachi (Nihon Toshokan Centre, 1994)
Shocking Crimes of Postwar Japan by Mark Schreiber (Yenbooks, 1996)
Shōwa by Tessa Morris-Suzuki (Methuen, 1984)
Tokyo Rising by Edward Seidensticker (Charles E. Tuttle, 1990)
Tokyo Underworld by Robert Whiting (Vintage, 1999)
Typhoon in Tokyo by Harry Emerson Wildes (Macmillan, 1954)
Valley of Darkness by Thomas R. H. Havens (University Press of America, 1986)
War, Occupation and Creativity, edited by Marlene J. Mayo and J. Thomas Rimer with H. Eleanor Kerkham (University of Hawaii Press, 2001)
The Yakuza by David E. Kaplan and Alec Dubro (University of California Press, 2003)
FILMS
Drunken Angel (Kurosawa Akira, Toho, 1948)
Gate of Flesh (Suzuki Seijun, Nikkatsu, 1964)
Senso to Heiwa (Yamamoto Satsuo and Kamei Fumio, Toho, 1947)
Story of a Prostitute (Suzuki Seijun, Nikkatsu, 1965)
Stray Dog (Kurosawa Akira, Shintoho, 1949)
Ugetsu (Mizoguchi Kenji, Daiei, 1953)
Under the Flag of the Rising Sun (Fukasaku Kinji, Toho, 1972)
SONGS
‘Ringo no Uta’ (the Apple Song), sung by Namiki Michiko, on Nippon Columbia, was the hit song of 1945-46 in Japan
‘Roei no Uta’ (the Bivouac Song), with lyrics by Kozeki Yuji and music by Yabuuchi Kiichiro, on Victor Records, was the winning entry in a 1937 nationwide patriotic songwriting contest
Plus the collected works of Les Rallizes Denudes, The Stalin, Ningen-isu, Sigh and Church of Misery