Voices Echoing in the Plaster-Colored City: Yoshiyuki Junnosuke and the Literary World of the 1970s

Voices Echoing in the Plaster-Colored City: Yoshiyuki Junnosuke and the Literary World of the 1970s

Yoshiyuki Junnosuke is a representative of the postwar school of literature, depicting human existence with a sharp urban sensibility and a cool-headed gaze. His masterpiece "Shusame (A shower)" won the Akutagawa Prize for expressing the malaise and sexual shadow that lurks in everyday life, and "Anmuro (A dark room)" dealt with the conflict between oppression and freedom, opening up a new horizon of psychological inquiry. Television Discussion," etc. are also included. The style of writing, in which contradictions of daily life and fragments of urban life are cut out and presented with humor and sarcasm, made a vivid impression on readers of the same era. At the time, Japan had completed its period of rapid economic growth and entered a period of stable economic growth, but spiritual fulfillment was far away, and the spread of television and the expansion of consumer culture were described as causing a loss of a sense of reality. Yoshiyuki skillfully portrayed this atmospher
e and literaryized the social cleavages. Unlike the dramatic expression of Yukio Mishima, the humanistic atmosphere of Shotaro Yasuoka, or the political literature of Kenzaburo Oe, Yoshiyuki stands out for his unique language of cold urban loneliness and humor. Beyond the form of an essay, "Plaster Color and Red" is a record of the cultural contradictions and social stagnation of the 1970s, and Yoshiyuki's works continue to shine as a mirror that questions the "difficulty of living" of people today.