Series | Ca’ Foscari Japanese Studies
Edited book | Death and Desire in Contemporary Japan
Chapter | 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.
Submitted: March 5, 2017 | Accepted: April 6, 2017 | Language: en
Keywords Witness Literature • Hiroshima • Storytelling • Nagasaki • Atomic Bomb • Literary Theory
Copyright © 2017 Francesco Comotti. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Permalink http://doi.org/10.14277/6969-151-5/CFJS-6-9
