Literature in Japanese (Nihongo bungaku): An Examination of the New Literary Topography by Plurilingual Writers from the 1990s

Since the 1990s, a number of plurilingual writers have published works with a heightened consciousness of incorporating different languages in the Japanese text, in the original and/or in translation, resulting in a gradual transformation of the literary topography. This paper will focus on the works by Hideo Levy (b. 1950), On Yūjū (b. 1980), and Yokoyama Yūta (b. 1981). These writers share a deep knowledge of and concern for the East Asian cultural sphere, especially the literature and culture in various Chinese societies. Using different writing and notational strategies, they resist the traditional method of “blending Japanese and Chinese” (wakan yūgō) and immerse themselves in the creative space in between Japanese and Chinese languages and cultures (including dialects and minority cultures), in search of a new language to document a plurilingual self and the world. Their experimentations in writing contributes to the emergence of literature in Japanese (Nihongo bungaku) as a body of work born of a language of hybridity and deeply engaged with plurilingual notations in its creation, written in Japanese by authors who are not necessarily Japanese nationals. With reference to Theodore Adorno’s theory of the “nonorganic nature” of language, Katō Shūichi’s celebration of the culture of hybridity, and Charles Ferguson’s idea of diglossia, this paper examines the potential and limitations of these writing experiments and the changing literary topography they engendered.