Waseda Bungaku’s charity project: Japan Earthquake Charity Literature

The earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan on March 11, 2011 claimed the lives of more than 15,000 people, displaced many more times that number from their homes, schools and workplaces, and triggered a nuclear accident whose effects are sure to last for decades.

These unprecedented events have forced people in Japan to think and act in new ways. We recognize our responsibility to mourn the dead and do what we can to help the people whose lives have been turned upside down. We realize that we are victims ourselves – both of the short to mid-term damage from the earthquake and the long-term damage from the nuclear accident. We cannot escape the fact that we are somehow responsible for the effects that the contamination from the nuclear accident will have on current and future generations both at home and abroad..

In towns where street lights and neon signs have been dimmed and where air-conditioning and the number of trains running have been reduced, everyone – regardless of whether they were directly affected or not – has been thinking about what they can do as well as what it means to use nuclear energy.

Writers are no exception. Jean-Paul Sartre once famously asked what literature can do for starving children. Each one of us began to ask ourselves similar questions: What can we write or not write? What can and should we be doing other than writing? What is it that we really have to offer?

The damage wrought by the disaster and the reconstruction process that followed on the one hand, and the accident at the nuclear power plant on the other, each raised issues that had to be thought about quite separately.

In responding to the first, we searched for words to mourn the dead and encourage survivors who were trying to get back on their feet. Some tried to write pieces that would bring solace to these survivors, while others composed requiems, just as Shoyo TSUBOUCHI, one of the founders of Modern Japanese literature, did in 1923 following the Great Kanto Earthquake. It is often said that “authors always arrive last”. Some made a conscious decision not to write, choosing instead to write about these events as history one day. There were those who questioned the value of writing fiction, while others did not hesitate to write when asked to do so. Some considered it their duty as a writer not to be moved by it all and chose to go on as always with daily life.

It was (and continues be) terribly difficult to find the words to offer those who have been directly affected by the disaster. Faced with the continuing effects of the nuclear accident, some shed tears thinking of the people in Fukushima they had grown up with; others joined demonstrations calling for the government and the electricity company to be held responsible for their mismanagement; still others began to rethink the way they had lived, dependent on electricity supplied by nuclear power; and some even called for the need to reevaluate the modern era that had “progressed” in that direction.

Such reactions naturally extended beyond the borders of Japan. We all imagined, lamented, and felt anger at the thought of the many devastating disasters that have shaken our world, the accidents that all kinds of technologies have caused, and similar events that are sure to happen again in the future, as if they were happening to our neighbors, our friends, and to ourselves. We think of Hemingway rushing to Madrid with rifle in hand to report on the Spanish Civil War as we head to Fukushima armed not with rifles, but buckets and shovels.

But for those of us who make a living by writing, it is clear that the biggest contribution we can make is through doing what we do. (Standing in front of a mound of rubble and debris with shovels, we are far less useful than local high school students.) Although they have used different methods and approaches, all the authors who participated in this project chose to try to do something for the areas and people affected through their writing. They all struggled in different ways as they wrote these short pieces that have been made available in English through the efforts of a number of translators.

This program aims to give serious thought to the disaster and accident, then bring these words that were born, directly or indirectly, through this thought process, to people across the world. We hope that after reading these texts you will choose to make a donation to the Red Cross in Japan or in your country or to another charity.

We hope that these pieces, written for ourselves as much as for anyone else, will reach people around the world, and eventually, in some small way, also serve to help the people in northern Japan who are now working hard to rebuild their lives.
Makoto ICHIKAWA (literary critic / director of Waseda Bungaku)
September 11, 2011
 

How to purchase the Waseda Bungaku charity contents

On behalf of the East Japan earthquake that occurred on March 11th 2011, Waseda Bungaku has organized a charity project that has gathered free of charge, newly published stories by contemporary Japanese writers. These stories were written primarily for use in Waseda Bungaku’s charity project and for distribution via the Waseda Bungaku website in PDF form. An e-book publication of these stories will also be made available in Japan. All proceeds from sales will be donated to the families of victims and survivors in areas affected by the disaster.

Literary works have been contributed by Hideo FURUKAWA, Kazushige ABE, Mieko KAWAKAMI, Toh ENJOE, Shin FUKUNAGA, Yasuhisa YOSHIKAWA, Jungo AOKI, Aoko MATSUDA, Sayaka MURATA, Fuminori NAKAMURA, Akio NAKAMORI, Furukuri KINOSHITA, Mayuko MAKITA, Maki KASHIMADA and Kiyoshi SHIGEMATSU. Author profiles, contributed short stories and essays can be found at the following URL.

PDF files of all the stories in this collection will be available to download from the website until March 2012. Sending these PDFs to third parties via e-mail, and posting the URLs to third-party sites, is permitted. (though Waseda Bungaku will take no responsibility for the content of such third-party sites). However, reproduction, in whole or in part, of the data on these PDFs in any printed media by any unauthorized third parties is strictly prohibited. Data alteration is likewise strictly prohibited.

We hope that after reading these texts you will choose to make a donation to the Red Cross in Japan (details below) or in your country or to another charity supporting disaster relief. In case of data transfer, we suggest you send us notification beforehand.

Kazushige ABE "RIDE ON TIME" (click to download) Translated by Michael Emmerich
Kazushige Abe was born in Yamagata in 1968. He graduated from the Japan Academy of Moving Images. 　In 1994, his novel Amerika no Yoru ("The American Night") was awarded The Gunzo's New Writers Prize. This award was chosen by literary committee members including Kojin KARATANI, who at the time had considerable influence in the Japanese literary scene. 　Since then, he has established himself as a literary pioneer. In 2004 his full-length novel Sin-semilla received The Ito Sei Prize and The Mainichi Publishing Culture Award. With his novel Grand Finale, published in 2005, he won the most renowned literary award in Japan, The Akutagawa Ryunosuke Prize. 　His most recent work, Pistils achieved The Tanizaki Jun'ichiro Prize, garnering respectful positive reviews.
Hideo FURUKAWA "Poola's Return" 　(click to download) Translated by Satoshi Katagiri
Hideo Furukawa was born in Fukushima in 1966. He dropped out of Waseda University. 　He was a playwrite while still in college and began his career as a novelist in 1998. In 2002 with the novel The Arabian Nightbreeds he received The Mystery Writers of Japan Award and The Japan SF Grand Prize. 　Initially, he was better known as a mystery and science fiction writer. By 2006 on achieving The Mishima Yukio Prize with the novel LOVE, he emerged as an avant garde / experimental writer. He collaborated with contemporary dancers, becoming a young writer worthy of attention in the art scene. 　One critic described him as, "Despite all of his various work styles and experimentalism, the stories themselves are easy to understand and this is where his exceptional talent lies". 　After the 2011 earthquake in Japan he received invitations from New York and various other regions of the world as a writer native to the disaster-stricken area in Eastern Japan.
Mieko KAWAKAMI "March Yarn" 　(click to download) Translated by Michael Emmerich
Mieko Kawakami was born in Osaka in 1976. In 2007, she made her debut with the novel Watakushiritsu in Ha - matawa Sekai. This novel was widely recognized as it became the nominee for the most renowned award in Japan, The Akutagawa Ryunosuke Prize. She won this award with the novel, Chichi to Ran. 　She was described as "Depicting objects with shapes in front of her eyes, like the touch of the hand, trailing her finger tips through them, with her very own stroke of gest. While she appears to be freewheeling, in truth her ability to weave the words with the utmost care is quite remarkable". 　She is also active as a singer and a poet. She was awarded The Nakahara Chuya Prize in 2009, with her poetry collection Sentan de Sasuwa Sasareruwa Soraewa. Her first full length novel Heaven won The prize of MEXT (the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology in Japan) and The Murasaki Shikibu Prize. 　She is widely recognized as the most sought after writer in Japan today.
Shin FUKUNAGA "Almost Everything in the World" (click to download) Translated by Michael Emmerich
Shin Fukunaga was born in Tokyo in 1972, he dropped out of the Kyoto University of Arts and Design. 　He began his career when he published the novel Yomioete ("After Reading") in 1998. With the novel Acrobat Zen'ya  ("the Previous Night of Acrobat") published in 2001 he brought the horizontal writing style, uncommon in conventional Japanese novel writing. Where usually the reader reads in columns from the right, in this novel the reader is led back to the 2nd sentence of the 1st page, flipping through pages in an unexpected way. 　He has collaborated with artists in many projects, writing art reviews and publishing works which constantly redefine the textual perspectives of story telling. Acrobat Zen'ya has been described as "Significant short stories where the writer brings to us the utmost imagination and sophistication. He rightfully manifests the true meaning of the word 'Acrobat'. It is here we find the utopia and liberty in fiction writing".
Toh ENJOE "Silverpoint" 　(click to download) Translated by Jocelyne Allen
Toh EnJoe was born in Hokkaido in 1972. After completing a Ph.D. in arts and sciences at the University of Tokyo, he became a researcher in theoretical physics. 　He made his debut into the world of literary novels with the story Of the Baseball. Around the same period, he entered the world of science fiction with Self-Reference ENGINE. He is considered as a writer capable of crossing various genres. 　In 2010 he released U Yu Shi Tan which received The Noma Literary Prize for New Writers, a newcomers award organized by Kodansha, Japan's largest publisher. In 2012, he won The Akutagawa Ryunosuke Prize which is the most renowned literary award in Japan, for his novel Dokeshi no Cho ("Butterflies of a Harlequin"). 　Yoko TAWADA, a writer who spans both the German and Japanese literary scenes, writes that EnJoe is "A writer who extends his interests from the field of natural science onto contemporary poetry. He absorbs the far reaches of eastern and western culture, widening the terrains of various categories. In doing so, he questions our existence, through introducing the readers to an unconventional reality."
Aoko MATSUDA "Planting" 　(click to download) Translated by Angus Turvill
Aoko Matsuda was born in Hyogo in 1979. She graduated from Doshisha University Faculty of Letters, Department of English. She published her first novel in 2007. 　Her keen mixture of rhythmical spoken language and bookish sensibility suggests fresh possibilities for Japanese literature. Of her small number of publications to date, the short story in this collection is the first to be translated into foreign languages. She looks set to become one of Japan's leading young authors.
Akio NAKAMORI "The Day the World Ends, We... 2011" 　(click to download) Translated by David Boyd
Akio Nakamori was born in Mie in 1960. He dropped out of Meiji University High School. 　He has been active as a columnist and as an editor for sub-culture related articles. He was widely regarded as one of the leading figures of the new herd of writers for the post-modern writing genre in Japan. Such writers include Professor of Religion, Shin'ichi NAKAZAWA and Philosopher Akira ASADA. He is well known as the writer who popularized the word "otaku" in the mass media, a word widely used around the world today. 　As a novelist, he portrayed the anarchist Sakae OSUGI who was an activist in 1920's Japan. He revived Osugi in the present age with the novel Anarchy in the JP published in 2010. It became a nominee for The Mishima Yukio Prize. The novel was described as "A story written for every boy and girl living in the 21st century". 　He published a story in the 1980's called Sekai no Owarini, Bokutachiwa... which is included in the book Tokyo Tongari Kids. In this novel he describes an end of the world image along with a sound track of popular music of that time period and a bicycle named Chernobyl. The story in this charity collection is a 2011 rewrite of this short novel.
Mayuko MAKITA "Signals" 　(click to download) Translated by Allison Markin Powell
Mayuko Makita was born in Kyoto in 1980. In 2007, she received an Encouragement Award from the enduring The Bungakukai's New Writers Prize for her short story, Isu ("The Chairs"). 　The story describes a protagonist in a state of ontological anxiety, engaged in dialogue with an unusual secondary character, observing themselves according to their own particular coordinates. 　Makita has not written much fiction, but the writing of this talented young author is eagerly anticipated in literary magazines.
Fuminori NAKAMURA "When the Earthquake Hit" 　(click to download) Translated by Michael Staley
Fuminori Nakamura was born in Aichi in 1977. He debuted as a writer in 2002, when he won The Shincho's New Writers Prize for his novel Ju ("A Gun"). 　In 2004 he received The Noma Literary Prize for New Writers, for Shako ("Shade"). And in 2005 he was awarded the Akutagawa Ryunosuke Prize- Japan's most prestigious literary award for new writers. Within the short span of a few years, he has achieved much acclaim. 　In 2010 his novel Suri ("The Thief") won The Oe Kenzaburo Prize, awarded by the Nobel Laureate himself. Oe described the novel as, "A work done by a writer who realizes the possibilities of introducing the contemporary perspective into the form of todays novel writing." 　Nakamura has been translated into various languages and The Thief will be published by Soho Press (N.Y.) in March 2012. (Photo by Shinji Kubo)
Jungo AOKI " Special Edition: Sack-toting Turtle Spotted in West Ikebukuro " 　(click to download) Translated by Ian MacDonald
Jungo Aoki was born in Saitama in 1979 and graduated from Waseda University. 　In 2003 he received The Shincho's New Writers Prize for his novella Yonju-nichi to Yonju-ya no Meruhen ("Forty Days and Forty Nights in Märchen"), which was republished in book form in 2005 together with the short story Kureta No Hotoride ("On the Edge of the Crater"). This book earned him The Noma Literary Prize for New Writers, sponsored by Kodansha, Japan's largest publisher. 　An established fellow writer has praised Aoki as "the Japanese Thomas Pynchon."
Yasuhisa YOSHIKAWA " SNOW DUSK, DEATH DUSK " 　(click to download) Translated by Lucy North
Yasuhisa Yoshikawa was born in 1951. He has a post-doctoral degree from Waseda University Graduate School of Letters, Arts and Sciences. 　Active as a translator and critic of contemporary Japanese and French literature, he started publishing novels relatively recently. In 2010 his novel Kantai ("Hospitality") was awarded The Kojima Nobuo Prize, an award named after one of the most important writers of Japan's post-war era. 　Yoshikawa's works of criticism include Murakami Haruki & HARUKI MURAKAMI - Seishin Bunseki Suru Sakka and Deleuze, Sen no Bungaku (both co-authored). His translated works include Les Georgiques by Claude SIMON.
Sayaka MURATA " Lover on the Breeze " 　(click to download) Translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori
Sayaka Murata was born in Chiba in 1979 and graduated from Tamagawa University. 　In 2003, her novel Ju'nyu ("Suckling") received the Award for Excellence in the Gunzo's New Writers Prize sponsored by Kodansha, Japan's largest publisher. This story, with its echoes of Simone de Beauvoir, has won her many fans. In it she depicts the sexual behaviors of human females, gradually moving towards a departure from the duality of the sexes with the emergence of "the third sex." Her 2009 novel Gin-iro no uta ("A Silver Song") won The Noma Literary Prize for New Writers. 　The well-known writer Mitsuyo KAKUTA commented that, "The central motifs of her novels may be appreciated by readers of all ages anywhere in the world."
Kiyoshi SHIGEMATSU " To Next Spring - Obon " 　(click to download) Translated by Angus Turvill
Kiyoshi Shigematsu was born in 1963. He graduated from Waseda University. 　He started work on the literary journal Waseda Bungaku while still a student, guided by established writers such as Kenji NAKAGAMI. He became an editor and free-lance writer, publishing his first novel in 1991. 　In 2000, with Vitamin F he won The Naoki Sanjugo Prize, Japan's leading award for broad-appeal literature. Conveying a strong sense of family warmth and love, his works attract a wide readership. He continues to foster a reputation as one of Japan’s leading popular writers, and in 2010 received The Yoshikawa Eiji Literary Prize, named after Japan's foremost historical novelist. 　He has visited the Tohoku region many times to report on the March 11 earthquake and to support the victims. His visits have also provided the background to the series To Next Spring , of which this story forms a part. In this series we witness the full force of the author's literary talent.
Maki KASHIMADA " The Interview " 　(click to download) Translated by Jocelyne Allen
Maki Kashimada was born in Tokyo in 1976, and graduated from Shirayuri College.In 1998, her first novel, Nihiki ("Two"), received the Bungei Prize, an award received by many well-known authors in Japan. Rokusendo no Ai ("6,000 Degrees of Love"), a novel based in Nagasaki, the second city to have the atomic bomb dropped on it, won The Mishima Yukio Prize in 2005. 　Masahiko SHIMADA, one of Japan's leading post-modern literary figures, refers to Kashimada as "a writer earnestly working towards the issues of expressing the inexpressible. She blends the ever-changing consciousness of the present and past into the perspective of the present. This literary style, like the tide of the river, was the method widely used by Marguerite DURAS."
Furukuri KINOSHITA " The Cambrian Palace Bombing Project" 　(click to download) Translated by Satoshi Katagiri
Furukuri Kinoshita was born in Saitama in 1981. In 2006 he made a debut with Mugen no Shimobe which received The Gunzo's New Writers Prize, an award sponsored by Kodansha, the largest publisher in Japan. 　His appeal is his post-post-modern literary style. With Iionna vs. Iionna published in 2011 he was written of as, "Furukuri Kinoshita's talent lies where he blends an almost bizarre preciseness that he uses to great effect. His work represents an eccentricity that is awe-inspiring." 　(illustrated by Asuka ASAHINA)
Donation Bank Account 1 Name of Bank: Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation Name of Branch: Ginza Account No.: 8047670 (Ordinary Account) SWIFT Code: SMBC JP JT Branch Number: 026 Address of Bank: Ginza Joint Building 6-10-15 Ginza Chuo-ku Tokyo JAPAN Payee Name: The Japanese Red Cross Society Payee Address: 1-1-3 Shiba-Daimon Minato-ku, Tokyo JAPAN Donation Bank Account 2 Name of Bank: The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Ltd. Name of Branch: Tokyo Government and Public Institutions Business Office Account No.:0028706(Ordinary Account) SWIFT Code: BOTKJPJT Branch Number: 300 Address of Bank: 3-6-3 Kajicho Kanda Chiyoda-ku Tokyo JAPAN Payee Name: The Japanese Red Cross Society Payee Address: 1-1-3 Shiba-Daimon Minato-ku, Tokyo JAPAN Donation Bank Account 3 Name of Bank: Mizuho Bank, LTD Name of Branch: Shinbashi Chuo Branch Account No.: 2188729 (Ordinary Account) SWIFT Code: MHBK JP JT Branch Number: 051 Address of Bank: 4-6-15 Shinbashi Minato-ku Tokyo JAPAN Payee Name: The Japanese Red Cross Society Payee Address: 1-1-3 Shiba-Daimon Minato-ku, Tokyo JAPAN (All bank accounts above are open until March 31, 2012.)