78 - Modern Japanese literature from Okinawa

Summary

Okinawa's subjugated position is evident in Okinawa's troubled history, from as early as 1609 when the Shimazu clan from Satsuma invaded the Ryukyu Islands and set into place colonial rule, to decades of prewar discrimination, the Battle of Okinawa, the prolonged American occupation, and the reversion to Japanese sovereignty in 1972. International attention paid to the 1995 rape kept Okinawa the object of media scrutiny and resulted in judges selecting Matayoshi Eiki's novel on Okinawan burial customs, Buta no mukui, for the Akutagawa Prize in 1996. Perhaps the only Akutagawa Prize winning work from Okinawa not directly linked to contemporary politics is Medoruma Shun's "Suiteki", which won in 1997. In 1999 Medoruma published in the Asahi newspaper "Kibo", an ironic short story that some took to be non-fiction. By far the most daring but overshadowed of contemporary authors is Sakiyama Tami. Like Medoruma, she has published stories since the early 1980s, two of which were nominated for the Akutagawa Prize.