The Hirabayashi Hatsunosuke Reader

Mass Culture and Intermediality in Imperial Japan
A much-needed English translation of writings by one of Japan’s major 20th-century cultural critics, Hirabayashi Hatsunosuke, supported by a wealth of critical essays covering key areas.

This edited volume brings a wide array of writings by Hirabayashi Hatsunosuke, one of 20th-century Japan’s most important intellectuals, into the English language for the first time. Part One contains translations of Hirabayashi’s fiction that embody the diversity of his work, including science fiction (‘The Artificial Human’), detective fiction (‘The Apartment Murder’), and more idiosyncratic works such as ‘Demon at the Pulpit’, an antitheist and anticlerical story.

In Part Two, The Hirabayashi Hatsunosuke Reader also provides a range of invaluable auxiliary critical essays which are written by expert scholars based in the USA, the UK, Australia, Italy and Japan. These essays examine Hirabayashi’s views on numerous topics, including the emerging women's movement, popular politics, Marxist theory, filmic and literary trends, and the relationship between mass production and modern aesthetics.

Sometimes referred to as ‘Japan’s Walter Benjamin’, Hirabayashi is widely known in Japanology, but has remained inaccessible to the English-speaking world until now. This book reveals how his varied literary texts and essays capture the rapid transformation of Japanese society and culture before World War Two in a way that makes them an integral part of the history of global modernity.

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