Travels in Manchuria and Mongolia
A Feminist Poet from Japan Encounters Prewar China
Author: Akiko Yosano and Joshua Fogel
A valuable document for the study of the modern Japanese construction of "China" and "the Chinese," this important travelogue by Yosana Akiko--one of Japan's greatest poets and a prominent spokeswoman during the early years of Japanese feminism--charts her travels in Japanese-controlled Manchuria and Mongolia in 1928. Written during a tense period in Sino-Japanese relations, Yosana's travelogue clearly reveals the limits of her stated progressive leanings in the face of the imperialist project of which she could not help but be a part.
Yosano Akiko (1878-1942) was highly a acclaimed Japanese poet and translator from classical Japanese. She was also a prominent feminist. In 1928 she was invited to travel around areas with a strong Japanese presence in China's northeast. This is her account of that journey.
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Summary
A valuable document for the study of the modern Japanese construction of "China" and "the Chinese," this important travelogue by Yosana Akiko--one of Japan's greatest poets and a prominent spokeswoman during the early years of Japanese feminism--charts her travels in Japanese-controlled Manchuria and Mongolia in 1928. Written during a tense period in Sino-Japanese relations, Yosana's travelogue clearly reveals the limits of her stated progressive leanings in the face of the imperialist project of which she could not help but be a part.
Yosano Akiko (1878-1942) was highly a acclaimed Japanese poet and translator from classical Japanese. She was also a prominent feminist. In 1928 she was invited to travel around areas with a strong Japanese presence in China's northeast. This is her account of that journey.
Description
Yosano Akiko (1878-1942) was one of Japan's greatest poets and translators from classical Japanese. Her output was extraordinary, including twenty volumes of poetry and the most popular translation of the ancient classic The Tale of Genji into modern Japanese. The mother of eleven children, she was a prominent feminist and frequent contributor to Japan's first feminist journal of creative writing, Seito (Blue stocking).
In 1928 at a highpoint of Sino-Japanese tensions, Yosano was invited by the South Manchurian Railway Company to travel around areas with a prominent Japanese presence in China's northeast. This volume, translated for the first time into English, is her account of that journey. Though a portrait of China and the Chinese, the chronicle is most revealing as a portrait of modern Japanese representations of China-and as a study of Yosano herself.
Critic Reviews
“"Curious, elegant...[Yosano's account] lingers in the mind, calling everything before it into question." -- John McClain, Pacific Reader”
"Curious, elegant...[Yosano's account] lingers in the mind, calling everything before it into question." -- John McClain, "Pacific Reader"
About the Author
Joshua A. Fogel is professor of history at the University of California at Santa Barbara. He is author of The Literature of Travel in the Japanese Rediscovery of Japan, 1862-1945 and, most recently, editor of The Nanjing Massacre in History and Historiography.
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