The Japan Proletarian Writers’ League’s ‘Greatest Enemy’: Miyamoto Yuriko Denounces Hayashi Fusao’s Youth

Abstract

ABSTRACT Writing in the early 1960s, literary critic Hirano Ken argued that writer Hayashi Fusao became the Japan Proletarian Writers’ League’s (Nihon Puroretaria Sakka Dōmei) ‘greatest enemy’, following his romantic interpretation of the Meiji Restoration in his historical novel Seinen (Youth). Hirano asserted that Hayashi questioned the Marxist interpretation of the Meiji Restoration, in hopes of challenging the leadership of the Writers’ League. Hirano maintains that this confrontation eventually led to the dissolution of the proletarian literature movement. Thus, here we first examine the initial criticism of Seinen by Kamei Katsuichirō and Tokunaga Sunao, followed by an analysis of the increasingly scathing condemnations of Hayashi’s historical novel by Kobayashi Takiji, Miyamoto Kenji, and finally a vitriolic and particularly mocking piece by Miyamoto Yuriko. Next, we review Hayashi’s response to this criticism, and end by considering appraisals of the confrontation: first, from a contemporary source in Marxist literary critic Aono Suekichi, and secondly, from Hirano Ken. Ultimately, this study hopes to underscore the contributing role of scorn and derision in intensifying the battle over the politics versus literature debate in the proletarian literature movement’s final days.