Wellesley College Japanese Literature Professor Eve Zimmerman gave a presentation on Japanese outcaste fiction last Thursday in the Shiffman Humanities Center as part of the "Re-imagining Tokyo" program, an attempt to encourage the Brandeis community to picture Tokyo's role in the modern world. "Re-imagining Tokyo" was brought to Brandeis campus through the Japan Studies Colloquium. The theme involves imagining Tokyo as a vibrant and creative space, and tries to understand the rich history of this constantly active metropolitan city. The event was co-sponsored by the German, Russian, and Asian Languages and Literature departments, and was made possible by the Office of The Dean of Arts and Sciences.

Zimmerman was brought to campus by Profs. Ellen Schattschneider (ANTH) and Matthew Fraleigh (EAS). Fraleigh, who teaches East Asian Literature and Culture, said he recommended Zimmerman "based on his interests in representations of the periphery and the metropolis in modern Japanese literature" and added that he has been impressed with Zimmerman's work because her "translations succeed remarkably well."

Zimmerman's talk focused on her book Out of the Alleyway; Nakagami Kenji and the Poetics of Outcaste Fiction. The book centers on Nakagami Kenji's experiences within the burakumin caste society of Japan, a social class of people who are ethnically indistinguishable from the Japanese, yet are discriminated against due to their practice of occupations labeled as culturally "unclean."

Kenji was a buraku youth aspiring to be a great author of Japanese literature who rose up against the caste system. The talk focused specifically on discussion between Kenji and Murakami Haruki, a contemporary writer of Japanese literature, with an emphasis on the "city versus the anti-city," or the contrasting sphere of influence on Japanese fiction in the 1980s.

Shunned and looked down upon by the rest of Japan, much like the untouchable caste of India, the burakumin lived reclusively in segregated neighborhoods. Zimmerman said that the burakumin "tended to have occupations traditionally seen as unclean, examples being animal slaughter, leatherworking and the transport of dead bodies."

She added that "apparently there was so much resentment to the burakumin families, that background checks were enforced to prevent inter-marriage."Zimmerman stressed the fact that the burakumin were seen as four-footed animals possessing tainted blood.

Kenji comes into the picture as a buraku youth who showed interest in writing literature in an illiterate community. The American occupation of Japan in 1946 enacted laws for children to go to school, and thus Nakagami gained his education in poetry and fiction.

After his violent and gritty fiction won him acclaim as an author in the 1970s, there was backlash once he proclaimed his burakumin roots. "Such a risky career move popularized his work with sympathetic western readers, who with the help of the left wing helped illuminate a hidden culture," Zimmerman said.

Nakagami died in 1992 from kidney cancer. Zimmerman, who has pursued her thesis work on translating his literature, said she was a personal friend of Nakagami. When prompted about the Nakagami legacy, Zimmerman said, "Nakagami will be remembered as paving the way for writers of other minority Japanese backgrounds. He was certainly a pioneer in broaching the topic of what it was like to be different in Japan."

Three additional speakers will visit this semester as part of the Japanese colloquium series.