Ca’ Foscari Japanese Studies

Collana | Ca’ Foscari Japanese Studies
Miscellanea | Death and Desire in Contemporary Japan
Capitolo | The Magnified Body of Survival

The Magnified Body of Survival

Tracing Communication Paradigms in Hiroshima and Nagasaki's Storytelling

Abstract

This essay concerns a number of problematic aspects of literary communication within works of literature about the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Specifically, it tries to compare and put into perspective the different approaches and motivations by authors who are also survivors and readers who are not into the literary text, when what is at stake is the knowledge of extremely violent experiences as Hiroshima and Nagasaki’s bombings. After a partial survey of writings about the atomic bombings produced outside the two cities by non-survivours, the essay will focus on some characteristic traits of Hiroshima and Nagasaki’s witness literature, in the light of which the paradigm of literary communication will be questioned and integrated to account also for the difficult relationship between the act of writing something that resists being put into words, and the attempt at participation that is the act of reading.


Open access | Peer reviewed

Presentato: 05 Marzo 2017 | Accettato: 06 Aprile 2017 | Lingua: en

Keywords Witness LiteratureStorytellingAtomic BombLiterary TheoryHiroshimaNagasaki


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