2022 NLA Fellowship Presentation: From Paris to Dalian

Discussions of twentieth-century Japanese literature are incomplete without considering the reception of modern Russian literature, and considerations of modern Russian literature require discussing the impact of French literature on the Russian Empire’s modernizing project. This talk considers how the entanglement of Russian and French culture appeared in twentieth-century Japanese literature. Seldom understanding “French” and “Russian” in the same sense, Japanese writers constructed competing analogies for how Japanese literature related to the other two. By working through this dual reception, this talk offers another way of thinking about reception and influence both in modern Japanese literature and world literature generally.