Novels to See/Movies to Read: Photographic Fiction in Japanese Women’s Magazines

This article analyzes interactions between text and photographic image in works of photographic fiction (shashin shôsetsu) printed in Japanese women’s magazines from the 1930s to the 1950s, including their interaction with cinema and print culture. The essay considers the complex effects of shifting technologies of visual reproduction on national and gendered identities, with particular attention to the significance of the “fictional” status of such photographic images during this era of intense historical reality.