Introduction

This introductory chapter offers a brief background into the works of Nakagami Kenji (1946–1992) and how he represented the voices of the socially silenced in Japan. Notably, Nakagami belonged to the Burakumin (“outcaste”). Although he is known as a Burakumin writer, and much of his writing is indeed set in a Burakumin context, not all of his material provides representations of Burakumin life. His work further depicts the diversity of backgrounds among Buraku people, including those who, like the writer himself, received financial and economic benefits from the democratic systems introduced at the time. Given this Burakumin emphasis, the chapter briefly introduces key historical and sociopolitical aspects of that experience before embarking on an analysis of the writer's works. This analysis also includes a brief overview of the extensive corpus of Nakagami scholarship which exists in both Japanese and English.

Paradox and Representation

How can the “voiceless” voice be represented? This primary question underpins this book's analysis of selected works by Buraku writer, Nakagami Kenji (1946–1992). In spite of his Buraku background, Nakagami's privilege as a writer made it difficult for him to “hear” and “represent” those voices silenced by mainstream social structures in Japan. This “paradox of representing the silenced voice” is the key theme of the book. Gayatri Spivak theorizes the (im)possibility of representing the voice of “subalterns,” those oppressed by imperialism, patriarchy, and heteronomativity. Arguing for Burakumin as Japan's “subalterns,” the book draws on Spivak to analyze Nakagami's texts. The first half of the book revisits the theme of the transgressive Burakumin man. This section includes analysis of a seldom discussed narrative of a violent man and his silenced wife. The second half of the book focuses on the rarely heard voices of Burakumin women from the Kiyuki trilogy. Satoko, the prostitute, unknowingly commits incest with her half-brother, Akiyuki. The aged Yuki sacrifices her youth in a brothel to feed her fatherless family. The mute Moyo remains traumatized by rape. The author's close reading of Nakagami's representation of the silenced voices of these sexually stigmatized women is this book's unique contribution to Nakagami scholarship.