Japanophone Literature? A Transpacific Query on Absence

Abstract

This essay inquires into the significance of the absent category of Japanophone literature in light of the recent rise of a global discourse on Sinophone literature and other postcolonial critical genealogies. This discussion of broader postcolonial taxonomies sets the stage for an investigation into the position of Japan as a minor empire in relation to its European counterparts. The precarious location among divided literary fields of colonial Korean writers, such as Kim Saryang, provides a segue into linking contested postcolonial and cold war legacies in the Asia-Pacific.