A. Critical and Comparative Studies

73. Okada, Sumie. Western Writers in Japan. London: Macmillan, 1999.

Okada’s study is useful for anecdotal details about the series of British writers who have taken up residence in Japan, but lacking in critical rigour, relying throughout on essentialist abstractions about ‘Western sensibilities’, the ‘Japanese mind’, and how the latter has befuddled the former. Includes ‘Lafcadio Hearn: The First Great Literary Emissary from the West’, ‘William Plomer: East-West Relationships’, ‘William Empson: “Unresolved Conflicts”’, ‘G S Fraser: A Westerner’s Analysis of Haiku’, ‘James Kirkup and D J Enright: A Humanitarian Mission?’, ‘Anthony Thwaite: Two Decades a Generation Apart’, ‘Stephen Spender: A Traveller Through Japan’, ‘Homosexuality and Japan’, and ‘Cultural Differences’, which includes brief sections on Peter Quennell (Ap), George Barker, Ronald Bottrall, Francis King, Dennis Keene, Harry Guest, and Peter Robinson.