Personality, Race, and Geopolitics in Joseph Heco's Narrative of a Japanese

Joseph Heco, a Japanese castaway who spent the 1850s working and studying in the US, played a significant role as translator, entrepreneur, and advisor after returning to Japan. This article examines the circum-Pacific contexts and stylistic idiosyncrasies of Heco's autobiographical Narrative of a Japanese, arguing that its formal flaws reflect disjunctions between the conventions of equality that underwrite Western autobiography and the uneven conditions governing Japan's forced modernization.