On the evolution of the native writer : articulating national culture in Tanizaki's fiction.

• Main Author: Lim, Alina Chai Ying.
• Other Authors: Sim Wai Chew
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: DRNTU::Humanities
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/52224
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

This thesis seeks to explore the extent to which a conversation between Frantz Fanon’s three-tiered paradigm on the evolution of the native writer – as manifested in his position on national culture in The Wretched of the Earth – and Tanizaki Junichiro’s literary trajectory successfully articulates the cultural implications of Japan’s negotiations with the West. Tanizaki Junichiro (1886–1965) lived through a period of Japanese history that witnessed the beginnings of Japan’s modernisation in the Meiji era (1868–1912), the nation’s subsequent evolving relationship with the West, two world wars, and a rapidly recovering post-war Japan attempting to secure a position as a global economic powerhouse. This turbulent historical landscape, and the continually evolving cultural context it engenders, informs Tanizaki’s literary trajectory as his works experience shifts in their perspectives and presentations of Japan in relation to the West.