Okinawa and disaster-struck Tohoku region sacrificed for Tokyo

Extract

The work of Ōshiro Tatsuhiro often tells of people caught in dire historical circumstances of war and oppression. He was the first of four Okinawan writers to win Japan's prestigious Akutagawa literary prize for his novella “Cocktail Party” (1967, translated 1989) depicting a father who seeks justice for the rape of his daughter by an American soldier in U.S.-occupied Okinawa. “Turtleback Tombs” (1966, translated 2000) narrates the ordeal of a three-generation family who take refuge from the Battle of Okinawa inside their large, traditional tomb, and find spiritual solace in local rituals honoring their ancestors. What distinguishes Ōshiro's writing is his knack for moving beyond the realm of daily media reports and explanatory essays to portray individuals coping with crises imposed on them by distant governments. He draws extensively on Okinawan culture, not only as “local color” background, but to express the motivations and values of people who seek to maintain their connections with the past, retrieve their ancestral lands forcibly occupied by the U.S. military since the end of World War II, and restore their peaceful lives.