The fiction of Tokuda Shūsei and the Emergence of Japan's New Middle Class

Article number 10157346

This scholarly study offers the first full-length English-language examination of the life and works of Tokuda Shūsei (1872–1943), one of Japan’s most important modern writers. Richard Torrance combines literary criticism, biography, and social history to show how Shūsei’s fiction reflected the profound social transformations of the late Meiji and early modern periods. Central to the analysis is the concept of shomin culture, the emerging culture of ordinary urban people whose experiences, struggles, and aspirations formed the basis of Japan’s new middle class. Through detailed readings of major works including Arajotai, Ashiato, Kabi, Tadare, Arakure, Kasō Jinbutsu, and Shukuzu, the book explores urbanization, migration, class formation, realism, and the representation of everyday life in modern Japanese literature.

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