Culture under Imperialism : Geibun and the Production of Manchurian Literature

This article argues that sincere efforts by a group of Japanese writers to give cultural expression to ethnic harmony in Manchukuo were unable to overcome the representational limitations of culture within an imperial system. It examines the debates that took place over the essence of Manchurian literature in literary journals and highlights the publication of the comprehensive cultural magazine Geibun as the culmination of efforts of Japanese writers to foster a genuine and distinctive literature for the new "nation" of Manchukuo. Their lively literary production was not restricted to or by official cultural propaganda, but nevertheless it gradually came to align with Japan's imperial priorities after the Asia-Pacific War broke out in 1941. A desire for literary realism among Japanese expats living in Dairen in the early twentieth century played a critical role in promoting cultural representations of ethnic harmony as the goal for Manchurian literature, and within the changing political landscape of the period, there were Japanese writers who remained committed to developing a genuinely Manchurian literature rooted in its distinct local soil and communal life. Yet, the impossibility of overcoming the structural and historical forces of imperialism was revealed in Geibun's pages. The article's final section demonstrates how imperialism intersected with culture through a textual analysis of a short story published in the journal's final issue, which demonstrates that the cultural production of these writers remained imprisoned by an inability to recognize and represent Japan's imperial dominance of Manchukuo.