Poetry
鮫
Not translated into English
Mitsuharu Kaneko · 1937
Synopsis
Poems born of a journey of about five years, from Southeast Asia to Europe, according to the Japanese dictionary Kotobank, which reads in them a critique of the war, of Japanese society, of the family system and of power centred on the emperor. Poetry International sees in them Southeast Asia under colonial domination, fixed in still images, in the words of the writer Kaikō Takeshi. The collection thus draws on the years of wandering the author lived through with his wife, the poet Mori Michiyo.
Context
The collection appeared in 1937 in Tokyo from Jinminsha. Poetry International links it, along with a travel narrative of 1940 devoted to Malaya and the Dutch East Indies, to the years spent in the colonies of the region. During the war, the author went on writing poems against the conflict although their publication had become impossible; they appeared only after 1945, in 1948, according to Kotobank.
Who it is for
Poems in free verse, for those interested in prewar Japanese poetry and its view of colonised Asia.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as a summit of modern Japanese poetry and of resistance to militarism, according to a Japanese dictionary.