Novel
Militarized Streets
武装せる市街
Kuroshima Denji · 1930
Opening lines
五六台の一輪車が追手に帆をあげた。
Five or six wheelbarrows hoisted their sails to the following wind.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from aozora.gr.jp
Synopsis
In the spring of 1928, the Chinese Nationalist army marches north to reunify the country, and Japan sends troops to Jinan, the capital of Shandong, on the pretext of protecting its nationals. The novel follows exploited Chinese workers, poor Japanese settled in the city and Japanese soldiers who begin to doubt. According to The Asia-Pacific Journal, a Japanese spy inflates the story with atrocities to stir up anger, and soldiers are ordered to attack a Chinese fort and hospital.
Context
The novel appeared in November 1930; it is the author's only long novel, and he had travelled to China to research it. It was banned almost immediately, censored again by the American occupation authorities fifteen years later, and did not reappear in full until 1970. A poet, a lifelong friend of the author, had helped with its publication. The book centres on the Jinan incident, in which Japanese troops, after clashes, attacked the city and killed or wounded thousands of Chinese civilians.
Who it is for
A novel without a single hero, for readers interested in Japanese antimilitarist literature; knowing the events of 1928 helps in reading it.
Prizes and reception
Translated into English by Željko Cipris under the title Militarized Streets, in a collection of the author's proletarian writings.