A Study on Bilingual Literature in Indonesia during Japanese Occpupation ：‘Nanyo’ Literature Overcomes Unilateralism

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to examine the dynamic multi-layeredness within the idea of “Imperial Japan” through the study of Indonesian bilingual literature under the imperial Japanese occupation. Until now, research on Japanese occupation literature in Indonesia and Southeast Asia has been conducted mainly in Japanese, and there is a limit to the parameters of research which has been centered on the history of Japanese literature as well as on the linguistic centrality of Japanese. To overcome these limitations, texts written in local languages as well as those in Japanese must be included as research subjects, and literature and discourse related to the various spaces (e.g., colonial Joseon) of Imperial Japan must be compared with one another. Only through this work will the multi-layered dynamics of Imperial Japan, the characteristics of the literary discourse in Southeast Asia, and the various literary desires within the colonies become more clear, and in this way the various dynamics of “Empire” will reveal themselves.