Tokyo Olympics of the Brush and Screen: Introduction to Literature Section

In keeping with the overarching Olympian theme of the present issue of the Review of Japanese Culture and Society, this section presents a selection of new translations and short essays that capture distinctive glimpses of the relationship between the world of Japanese literature and Tokyo Olympics past (1964) and present (2020). As preeminent international sporting events, the Olympic Games possess the potential to seize the popular imagination, particularly that of the host country, but also ignite controversy. The resonance of the Olympic movement in Japan reaches far beyond the domain of sport, penetrating into politics and society, infrastructure and the culture industries, shaping literary production as well as architecture and design. In a recent survey of "Japan's Olympic Literature," Richard Nathan has proposed that, because "the Olympic movement and the Olympic Games themselves are global canvases that nations and ambitious individuals have used to create powerful narratives and lasting impressions," writers of Olympic nations, prominently including Japan, have played "an essential part in developing these important national narratives."¹ What role did Japanese literary figures and the literary establishment play in weaving or critiquing such national narratives of global sport? The selections collected in this section suggest not merely how Japanese writers found meaning in Olympiads held in their nation's capital, but also how literary voices and icons have been mobilized for the purposes of these international sporting events.

By the time the first Tokyo Olympics were held in 1964, there was already an established relationship between literary production and Olympic fever in Japan. Perhaps the most notable historical example of Japan's Olympic literature is the 1940 novella The Fruits of Olympus (Orinposu no kajitsu) by Tanaka Hidemitsu (1913-48), an athlete-turned-writer who reflected in I-novel form on his own experiences as a member of Japan's rowing team who participated in the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics.² But the Summer Games held in Tokyo from October 10 to 24, 1964 have come to be seen as an epoch-making moment for the country in the postwar era, duly enshrined in the architectural monuments erected to host the competitions, cinematic tributes like Ichikawa Kon's Tokyo Olympiad (1965), and even narratives produced and disseminated by the Japanese literary establishment and publishing world. Specifically, the Tokyo 1964 Games provided an invaluable opportunity to commemorate Japan's postwar recovery and rehabilitation on an international scene less than two decades after the end of the disastrous Asia-Pacific War. The staged spectacle elicited a significant reaction among novelists, poets, and critics of the host nation, who contributed to building the mythos around Tokyo 1964.

In 1964, however, the cultural resonance of the Olympics was not expressed in the creative production of new Olympic novels or poetry; rather, literary figures served primarily as public intellectuals, cultural commentators, and even trenchant critics of the Games, whose charge was to weigh in on the historic significance of the events then taking place in the nation's capital. In this sense, Tokyo 1964 bequeathed a significant literary legacy. Publications competed so fiercely to secure manuscripts from the prominent figures of the day, and the flood of reflections appearing in newspapers and magazines was so steady, that the Tokyo Olympics were colloquially dubbed the fude no orinpikku, or "Writing Brush Olympics."³ A who's who of prominent representatives of the Japanese literary establishment were called on to take up writing brushes, pens, and typewriters in order to probe the myriad cultural meanings of the Tokyo Olympics for the nation. Literary notables who commented on the Games in print included Mishima Yukio, Ōe Kenzaburō, Ishikawa Tatsuzō, Ishihara Shintarō, Sono Ayako, Matsumoto Seichō, Oda Makoto, Ariyoshi Sawako, Endō Shūsaku, Hirabayashi Taiko, Agawa Hiroyuki, Yasuoka Shōtarō, and Kobayashi Hideo. Their commentary took the form of short reflections that ran in newspapers and magazines during or immediately following the Games, many of which were collected for posterity in a bound volume issued later that same year by the publishing powerhouse Kodansha, Tokyo Olympics: The Festival of the Century as Seen by Literary Figures (Tokyo orinpikku: bungakusha...