Hostname: page-component-7b9c58cd5d-6tpvb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-03-17T06:58:20.746Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Implicated Reading: Medoruma Shun's Me no oku no mori and the Ethics of Narrative Transmission

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Cindi Textor
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

This paper analyzes the animating potential of narrative in Medoruma Shun's Me no oku no mori (In the Woods of Memory, 2009). The novel's narrative structure embodies both the constant circulation of traumatic memories, particularly surrounding sexual violence, and the inevitable gaps in such memories. The text draws the reader in turn into its spiral of telling and re-telling, shifting the burden of narrating history onto countless new witnesses. Moreover, the act of narrating this violent past necessarily entails the acknowledgment of one's own complicity in its violent reverberations in the present.

Keywords

Medoruma Shunnarrativewar memorythe Battle of Okinawasexual violence
Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 20 , Issue 18 , October 2022 , e1
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2022

References

Holm, Alisa. “The Forest in the Depths of Her Eyes: Sayoko's Silence and Art-Making as a Reparative Force in Medoruma Shun's Me no oku no mori.” BA Thesis, The University of Vermont, 2015.Google Scholar
Ikeda, Kyle. 2014. Okinawan War Memory: Transgenerational Trauma and the War Fiction of Medoruma Shun. New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yoshiaki, Koshikawa. 2009. “Kikan bukku rebyū, Medoruma Shun ‘Me no oku no mori’: Mori no gama ni hibike, Uchinaa no koe.” Shōsetsu Torippā, Winter: 434–436.Google Scholar
Yoshiaki, Koshikawa. 2013. “Medoruma Shun no bungaku: Uchinaaguchi to sono hihyōteki pafōmansu.” Paper presented at the Association for Japanese Literary Studies, Chicago, IL, October 18.Google Scholar
Yūsuke, Kuriyama. 2020. “Bōryoku no kioku o ‘kataru’ tame ni: Medoruma Shun ‘Me no oku no mori’ ron.” Ritsumeikan bungaku 669:26–36.Google Scholar
Madigan, Lee, and Gamble, Nancy C.. 1991. The Second Rape: Society's Continued Betrayal of the Victim. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
McCormack, Gavan, and Norimatsu, Satoko Oka. 2018. Resistant Islands: Okinawa Confronts Japan and the United States. Second Edition. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Shun, Medoruma. 2000. “Droplets.” Translated by Michael Molasky. In Southern Exposure: Modern Japanese Literature from Okinawa, edited by Molasky, Michael and Rabson, Steve, 255–285. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.Google Scholar
Shun, Medoruma. 2005. Okinawa “sengo” zero nen. Tokyo: NHK Shuppan.Google Scholar
Shun, Medoruma. 2009a. Me no oku no mori. Tokyo: Kage Shobō.Google Scholar
Shun, Medoruma. 2009b. “The Wind Sound.” Translated by Kyōko Selden and Alisa Freedman. Review of Japanese Culture and Society 21:137–172.Google Scholar
Shun, Medoruma. 2011. “Spirit Stuffing.” Translated by Kyle Ikeda. Mānoa 23, no. 1:112–134.Google Scholar
Shun, Medoruma. 2016. “Tree of Butterflies.” Translated by Aimée Mizuno. In Islands of Protest: Japanese Literature from Okinawa, edited by Bhowmik, Davinder and Rabson, Steve, 71–112. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.Google Scholar
Shun, Medoruma. 2017. In the Woods of Memory. Translated by Sminkey, Kasumi. Berkeley, CA: Stonebridge Press.Google Scholar
Molasky, Michael. 1999. The American Occupation of Japan and Okinawa: Literature and Memory. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Katsunao, Murakami. 2017. “Hakyū suru sensō: Medoruma Shun ‘Me no oku no mori’ o yomu tame ni.” Ekkyō hiroba 4:28–36.Google Scholar
Yōko, Murakami. 2015. Dekigoto no zankyō: Genbaku bungaku to Okinawa bungaku. Tokyo: Inpakuto Shuppan.Google Scholar
Yōko, Murakami. 2019. “Bōryoku ni yoranai teikō no kairo o hiraku: Medoruma Shun ‘Me no oku no mori’ o megutte.” Fukuin to sekai 74, no. 9:30–35.Google Scholar
Chihiro, Nishie and Shun, Medoruma. 2016. “Sen no shōgen ni mizukara kasane.” Okinawa Taimuzu, May 8.Google Scholar
Yasumitsu, Onishi. 2017. “Medoruma Shun ‘Me no oku no mori’ ron: Shūdan ni naizai suru bōryoku to ‘yurushi.’” Mie Daigaku Nihon gogaku bungaku 28:43–55.Google Scholar
Ōta Tetsuo. 2020. “Medoruma Shun ‘Me no oku no mori’ o yomu.” Ōbirin sekai bungaku 16:71–84.Google Scholar
Ōta Tetsuo. 2021. “Medoruma Shun ‘Me no oku no mori’ o yomu (ni).” Ōbirin sekai bungaku 17:67–80.Google Scholar
Serrano, Richard A., and Mitchell, Jon. 2021. “Okinawa: Race, Military Justice and the Yumiko-Chan Incident.” The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus 19, no. 22: Article ID 5650.Google Scholar
Sminkey, Kasumi. 2017. “Translator's Preface.” In Shun, Medoruma, In the Woods of Memory, 9–16. Berkeley, CA: Stonebridge Press.Google Scholar
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 1994. “Can the Subaltern Speak?” In Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory: A Reader, edited by Chrisman, Laura and Williams, Patrick, 66–111. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Tomoyuki, Suzuki. 2012. “Fukusō suru kioku: Medoruma Shun Me no oku no mori ni okeru ‘vijon’ no kakutoku to ‘koe’ no kaiki.” Shakai shirin 59, no. 1:35–65.Google Scholar
Suzuyo, Takazato. 2016. “Okinawan Women Demand U.S. Forces Out After Another Rape and Murder: Suspect an Ex-Marine and U.S. Military Employee.” Translated by Emma Dalton. The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus 14, no. 11: Article ID 4900.Google Scholar
Treat, John Whittier. 1995. Writing Ground Zero: Japanese Literature and the Atomic Bomb. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Yoneyama, Lisa. 2016. Cold War Ruins: Transpacific Critique of American Justice and Japanese War Crimes. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar