The closed hand: Images of the Japanese in modern Peruvian literature.
Item
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Title
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The closed hand: Images of the Japanese in modern Peruvian literature.
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Identifier
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AAI3277945
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identifier
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3277945
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Creator
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Tsurumi, Rebecca.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Susana Reisz
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Date
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2007
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Literature, Latin American | Sociology, Ethnic and Racial Studies
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Abstract
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This dissertation examines the image of the Japanese developed in a corpus of modern prose texts by Peruvian writers without Japanese ancestry including Mario Vargas Llosa, Miguel Gutierrez, Alfredo Bryce Echenique, Carmen Olle, Pilar Dughi, Mario Bellatin, and in the poetry of two Peruvian Nisei poets, Jose Watanabe and Doris Moromisato. The goals are to explore the perceptions of the Japanese in the modern fiction and poetry of Peruvian authors, and to evaluate what their creative compositions reveal about their attitudes and knowledge of the Japanese as a culture and a minority within Peruvian society. The outsider perspective of the Peruvian authors is compared with the insider viewpoint of the Nisei poets who draw their insight from personal experience and from intimate observations of their parents, relatives and friends.;The scope of my study encompasses works dating from 1966 through 2005, and includes narrative (short stories and novels) and poetry. Among the primary texts in this study are: La casa verde, "Matavilela", "Muerte de Sevilla en Madrid", Las dos caras del deseo, Punales escondidos, El jardin de la senora Murakami, Shiki Nagaoka: una nariz de ficcion , Elogio del Refrenamiento, La piedra alada, Chambala era un camino, and Diario de la mujer es ponja.;Two chapters introduce the thesis topic and provide a framework to enhance the understanding of the relationship between the Japanese and Peruvian cultures. The first chapter describes the socio-historical context in Japan when its emigrants left in pursuit of an economic dream, and follows them to Peru at the end of the nineteenth century. The second chapter traces the evolution of the term "Oriental" through history and examines the images of the Japanese/Oriental in Modernista prose and poetry and beyond in the writing of Octavio Paz and Jorge Luis Borges. Chapters 3-9 analyze the individual works of modern Peruvian narrative and poetry, followed by the thesis conclusions in Chapter 10. Transcripts of my personal interviews with six of the authors are included in the appendix.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
