The Kumano saga of Nakagami Kenji

Emerging on the literary scene as a contentious novelist, Nakagami Kenji received Japan's most coveted literary prize in 1976 and was hailed as a renewer of prose fiction. Apart from literary aspects certain factors contributed to spreading Nakagami's renown and have singled him out for posthumous glorification. His outsider status as a burakumin outcast, coupled with his habit of creating controversy around his person, has worked in this direction. Since he came from a family of contractors and used construction workers as characters, Nakagami became known as a worker writer. Hence there has been a confusion of the life and letters of the author. This study is an attempt to look beyond such appearances and critically scrutinize Nakagami's fiction and statements in general.; First I introduce Nakagami and his literature and also comment on the research devoted to him. Next I try to bring Nakagami's letters and life together and show why his fiction has come to be read in an autobiographical context. I apply an intertextual reading to a series of his writing in order to deepen the understanding of his approach to fiction. Especially I point to the way in which Nakagami's various writings keep interrelating endlessly, and to the literary effect of mythologizing his own person and family background. Then I investigate how Nakagami's fiction relates to that of William Faulkner. Here I conclude that, while we may point to innumerable similarities on the level of story content, Nakagami displays no true affinity to Faulkner as regards narrative technique. In the fourth chapter I use the concept of perspective from the field of narratology to investigate three central novels, the so called Akiyuki trilogy. Here I illustrate and express in theoretical terms what critics have identified as a major change in Nakagami's career. It is shown that in the course of time Nakagami's fiction evolves into what is known as the behaviourist type of narration. Lastly I widen the scope by comparing Nakagami's narrative technique with that of five other Japanese writers. The main conclusion here is that Nakagami's narration is distinguished by a neutral and graphic step-by-step description of a course of events.