Category: Literature

Scripting Modernity in Japanese Drama

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A Beggar’s Art
In the opening decades of the twentieth century in Japan, practically every major author wrote plays that were published and performed. The plays were seen not simply as the emergence of a new literary form but as a manifestation of modernity itself, transforming the stage into a site for the exploration of new ideas and ways of being. A Beggar’s Art: Scripting Modernity in Japanese Drama, 1900-1930, is the first book in English to examine the full range of early twentieth-century Japanese drama. Accompanying his study, M. Cody Poulton provides his translations of representative one-act plays. Poulton looks at the emergence of drama as a modern literary and artistic form and chronicles the creation of modern Japanese drama as a reaction to both traditional (particularly kabuki) dramaturgy and European drama. Translations and productions of the latter became the model for the so-called New Theater (shingeki), where the question of how to be both modern and Japanese at the same time was hotly contested.

June 2010 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3452-4 / $29.00 (PAPER)

The Cultural Politics of Modern Chinese Fiction and Film

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Adapted for the ScreenContemporary Chinese films are popular with audiences worldwide, but a key reason for their success has gone unnoticed: many of the films are adapted from brilliant literary works. Adapted for the Screen: The Cultural Politics of Modern Chinese Fiction and Film, by Hsiu-Chuang Deppman, is the first to put these landmark films in the context of their literary origins and explore how the best Chinese directors adapt fictional narratives and styles for film. She unites aesthetics with history in her argument that the rise of cinema in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan in the late 1980s was partly fueled by burgeoning literary movements. Fifth Generation director Zhang Yimou’s highly acclaimed films Red Sorghum, Raise the Red Lantern, and To Live are built on the experimental works of Mo Yan, Su Tong, and Yu Hua, respectively. Hong Kong new wave’s Ann Hui and Stanley Kwan capitalized on the irresistible visual metaphors of Eileen Chang’s postrealism. Hou Xiaoxian’s new Taiwan cinema turned to fiction by Huang Chunming and Zhu Tianwen for fine-grained perspectives on class and gender relations. Delving equally into the individual approaches of directors and writers, Deppman initiates readers into the exciting possibilities emanating from the world of Chinese cinema.

“Hsiu-Chuang Deppman’s ambitious book investigates the complex associative and conceptual interaction between literature and film, arguing that in many cases, a structural connection underlies the relationship. Her work is a strong challenge to those who believe literature and film should always be regarded as completely separate and unrelated. Deppman’s fascinating chapter on the hip Wong Kar-wai and his debt to novelist Liu Yichang well illustrates the way in which directors can play with and play off of narrative structures, in the process setting up a provocative intersection.” –Wendy Larson, University of Oregon

May 2010 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3454-8 / $27.00 (PAPER)

“One of the great Indian plays of the millennium”

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Andha YugOne of the most significant plays of post-Independence India, Dharamvir Bharati’s Andha Yug takes place on the last day of the Great Mahabharata War. The once-beautiful city of Hastinapur is burning, the battlefield beyond the walls is piled with corpses, and the few survivors huddle together in grief and rage, blaming the destruction on their adversaries, divine capriciousness—anyone or anything except their own moral choices. Andha Yug explores our capacity for moral action, reconciliation, and goodness in times of atrocity and reveals what happens when individuals succumb to the cruelty and cynicism of a blind, dispirited age.

“Andha Yug is one of the great Indian plays of the millennium, and in Alok Bhalla it has found an ideal translator. . . . A model in the fraught field of translation.” —Girish Karnad, playwright, Padma Bhushan and Jnanpith Laureate

“Bhalla’s fine translation is austere and rigorous, negotiating both the epic scale of the play and the Spartan simplicity of its poetry.” —Keki N. Daruwalla, poet, Sahitya Akademi Laureate

May 2010 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3517-0 / $20.00 (PAPER)
Manoa 22:1

Tomoko Aoyama Honored for Reading Food in Modern Japanese Literature

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Reading FoodTomoko Aoyama is the most recent recipient of the Asian Studies Association of Australia’s Mid-career Researcher Prize for Excellence. Dr. Aoyama received the prize for her work in Reading Food in Modern Japanese Literature, published by UH Press in 2008.

“At first glance, this seems an unlikely subject, but the originality of the topic is fully sustained by the clarity of exposition, the profound knowledge of modern Japanese literature (both in the original and in translation) and the assurance of the author’s voice. A wide-ranging interest in theory never obscures its application to the discussion of particular works and themes. With a broad interdisciplinary approach, the author offers many sharp and relevant insights from anthropology, history, cultural studies, feminism, etc., and her cross-cultural insights are well-based. A feature of the book is the skill with which the English reader is led to appreciate linguistic subtleties in the Japanese.” —Citation from the Prize Committee

Gender and Body in Japanese Women’s Fiction

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The Other Women's LibThe Other Women’s Lib: Gender and Body in Japanese Women’s Fiction, by Julia C. Bullock, provides the first systematic analysis of Japanese literary feminist discourse of the 1960s—a full decade before the “women’s lib” movement emerged in Japan. It highlights the work of three well-known female fiction writers of this generation (Kono Taeko, Takahashi Takako, and Kurahashi Yumiko) for their avant-garde literary challenges to dominant models of femininity. Focusing on four tropes persistently employed by these writers to protest oppressive gender stereotypes—the disciplinary masculine gaze, feminist misogyny, “odd bodies,” and female homoeroticism—Julia Bullock brings to the fore their previously unrecognized theoretical contributions to second-wave radical feminist discourse.

“Julia Bullock’s lively study fills a significant lacuna in our understanding of feminist theoretical development prior to the women’s lib movement of the 1970s. Dealing with three of the most fascinating and challenging authors of the era, Bullock’s sustained literary analyses are adroit, illuminating, and informative. Her study is lucid enough to open itself to bright undergraduates, but provocative enough to engage seasoned scholars of modern literature.” —Rebecca Copeland, author of Lost Leaves: Women Writers of Meiji Japan

April 2010 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3453-1 / $25.00 (PAPER)

Surfer’s Praise for Pacific Passages

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Pacific PassagesRead Tim Baker’s Surfing World review of Pacific Passages: An Anthology of Surf Writing, edited by Patrick Moser, here.

“This gem of a book provides just about the best historical overview of surfing, and surf writing, you are likely to find anywhere. . . . This kind of thoughtful, revealing, sensitive contemplation of the surfing life seems like an antidote to the times we live in. I loved this book, if only for the way it helped illustrate that the current buzz and chatter of web silliness is just one very small point on a long, long continuum. Thank goodness for that.”

The Adventures of Vela Shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize

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The Adventures of VelaThe Adventures of Vela, by Albert Wendt and published last fall by UH Press, has been shortlisted for the 2010 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize (Southeast Asia and Pacific Best Book division).

The critically acclaimed Commonwealth Writers’ Prize is in its 24th year and offers an exceptional opportunity for new writers to demonstrate their talent and for authors already on the literary scene to strengthen their reputation. The prize is presented by the Commonwealth Foundation with support from the Macquarie Group Foundation. The final program, starting on April 7, 2010, in Delhi, India, will bring together the finalists from the different regions of the Commonwealth, and the two overall winners will be announced there on April 12.

The Pink Notebook of Madame Chrysantheme

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The Chrysantheme PapersPierre Loti’s novel Madame Chrysanthème (1888) enjoyed great popularity during the author’s lifetime, served as a source of Puccini’s opera Madama Butterfly, and remains in print to this day as a classic in Western literature. Loti’s story, cast in the form of his fictionalized diary, describes the affair between a French naval officer and Chrysanthème, a temporary “bride” purchased in Nagasaki. More broadly, Loti’s novel helped define the terms in which Occidentals perceived Japan as delicate, feminine, and, to use one of Loti’s favorite words, “preposterous”—in short, ripe for exploitation.

The Pink Notebook of Madame Chrysanthème (1893) sought, according to a newspaper reviewer at the time, “to avenge Japan for the adjectives that Pierre Loti has inflicted on it.” Written by Félix Régamey, a talented illustrator with firsthand knowledge of Japan, The Pink Notebook retells Loti’s story but this time as the diary of Chrysanthème. The book, presented here in English for the first time and together with the original French text and illustrations by Régamey and others, is certainly surprising in its late nineteenth-century context. Its retelling of a classic tale from the position of a character marginalized by her sex and race provocatively anticipates certain aspects of postmodern literature. Translator Christopher Reed’s rich and satisfying introduction compares Loti and Régamey in relation to attitudes toward Japan held by notable Japonistes Vincent van Gogh, Lafcadio Hearn, Edmond de Goncourt, and Philippe Burty. February 2010 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3437-1 / $14.00 (PAPER)

Jon Shirota Returns to Maui

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Nationally acclaimed author Jon Shirota returns to Maui this month! Shirota’s 1965 classic Lucky Come Hawaii, the first novel by an Asian American writer in Hawai‘i to become a national bestseller, was recently issued in a newly revised edition by Manoa: A Pacific Journal of International Writing and University of Hawai‘i Press.

Thursday, January 14, 7 p.m., Maui Okinawa Cultural Center: Jon Shirota will give a free public talk hosted by the Maui Okinawa Kenjin Kai (MOKK). Please RSVP by calling MOKK at 808-242-1560.

Friday, January 15, and Saturday, January 16, 7:30 p.m., McCoy Studio Theater of the Maui Arts and Cultural Center: Kumu Kahua Theatre presents Shirota’s latest play, Voices from Okinawa. For more information, call the McCoy box office at 808-242-7469 or write boxoffice@mauiarts.org.

Saturday, January 16, 2-3:30 p.m., Borders-Kahului, Maui Marketplace: Shirota will be signing copies of his books. For more information, call Borders-Kahului at 808-877-6160.

Choice Magazine’s Outstanding Academic Titles for 2009 Announced

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Each year Choice Magazine, the official publication of the Association of College and Research Libraries, compiles a distinguished list of Outstanding Academic Titles. The following two UH Press books were recognized for 2009. A complete list of titles will be available in Choice’s January 2010 issue.

Tour of Duty: Samurai, Military Service in Edo, and the Culture of Early Modern Japan
by Constantine Nomikos Vaporis

“Vaporis has written a magnificent book on the sankin kotai, or alternate attendance system. . . . Long considered the central political control mechanism of the Tokugawa period, the system has received surprisingly little scholarly attention until now. Filling a major gap in the understanding of Japanese history, the author provides a detailed account of the mechanics of the system and demands placed on daimyo and retainers on tours of duty in Edo. Exploiting the latest archaeological and archival sources, Vaporis makes clear the economic burden of the system on the daimyo, as well as its role as an engine of cultural, intellectual, and material exchange, from the center in Edo and between regions. The author also provides intimate details of the lives of samurai, both on the road to and from Edo and while serving their time in Edo. For all interested in early modern history. . . . Highly recommended.” —Choice (July 2009)

Kabuki’s Forgotten War: 1931-1945 by James R. Brandon

“Brandon offers new and intriguing research on the development of Kabuki through the turbulent 1930s and into the 1940s. . . . A vital addition to existing literature on what one thinks of as ‘traditional’ Kabuki, this book will be fascinating reading for those interested in Japanese theater, history, or politics. . . . Essential.” —Choice (April 2009)

Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton to Speak at Center for Korean Studies, UHM

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On Thursday, December 10, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. at the Center for Korean Studies, UH-Mānoa (1881 East-West Road), award-winning translators Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton will give a talk on their new work, The Red Room: Stories of Trauma in Contemporary Korea. The two are visiting from western Canada, where Bruce Fulton is associate professor in the Department of Asian Studies, University of British Columbia. The Red Room brings together stories by three canonical Korean writers who examine trauma as a simple fact of life. Copies of The Red Room will be available for purchase, as will MĀNOA journal’s Enduring War: Stories of What We’ve Learned, which includes a translation by Fulton. Light refreshments will be provided and the event is free and open to the public.

Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton are the translators of numerous volumes of contemporary Korean fiction, including Trees on a Slope by Hwang Sun-won and The Dwarf by Cho Se-hui, both also published by University of Hawai‘i Press. The Red Room retails for $15.00 and can be ordered from UH Press by phone: 956-8255, toll free: 1-888-847-7377; email: uhpbooks@hawaii.edu; or online: www.uhpress.hawaii.edu. For event information, call 956-8697.

Sexuality in China on the Verge of Modernity

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Polygamy and Sublime PassionFor centuries of Chinese history, polygamy and prostitution were closely linked practices that legitimized the “polygynous male,” the man with multiple sexual partners. Despite their strict hierarchies, these practices also addressed fundamental antagonisms in sexual relations in serious and constructive ways. Qing fiction abounds in stories of female resistance and superiority. Women—main wives, concubines, and prostitutes—were adept at exerting control and gaining status for themselves, while men indulged in elaborate fantasies about female power. In Polygamy and Sublime Passion: Sexuality in China on the Verge of Modernity, Keith McMahon introduces a new concept, “passive polygamy,” to explain the unusual number of Qing stories in which women take charge of a man’s desires, turning him into an instrument of female will. To this he adds a story that haunted the institutions of polygamy and prostitution: the tale of “sublime passion,” in which the main characters are a “remarkable” woman and her male lover.

“This book is a tour de force, the first in English to discuss Chinese fiction from the nineteenth century through the first decade of the twentieth within a comprehensive thematic frame. McMahon’s familiarity with Chinese fiction of the period covered is extremely impressive, as is his command of the secondary sources, both English and Chinese.” —Theodore Huters, UCLA

December 2009 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3376-3 / $55.00 (CLOTH)

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