The Burdens of Survival : Ooka Shohei's Writings on the Pacific War

Although still virtually unknown in the West, Ôoka Shôhei (1909-1988) is one of Japan's most important and influential writers and social critics. __The Burdens of Survival__ is both a seminal English-language study of this preeminent literary figure and one of the first scholarly works to thoroughly examine the war literature of a major Japanese veteran-author. Drawing on Robert Jay Lifton's work on traumatic experience and survivor psychology, the book tells the illuminating story of Ôoka's arduous journey that began with guilt-ridden survival as a prisoner of war in the Philippines and culminated some twenty-five years later in the fruitful completion of survivor mission. David C. Stahl examines Ôoka's battlefield memoirs, including the established war classic __Fires on the Plain__ (1952), in terms of extreme experience, survivor guilt, bearing witness, and the "inability to mourn." Writing enabled Ôoka to give cathartic expression to his haunting battlefield experience and made it possible for him to move from blame-shifting to empathy and mourning. The lengthy, exhaustively researched historical work __The Battle for Leyte Island__ (1967-1969) faithfully details the personal and collective experience of battle, depravation, and loss, and clarifies who and what was ultimately responsible for defeat. Toward the end of this work and __Return to Mindoro Island__ (1969), Ooka draws attention to the outstanding obligations owed by his countrymen to the war dead and suggests how they can be fulfilled by public confrontation, learning the lessons of defeat, and using them to rectify lingering social and political evils. "Although still virtually unknown in the West, Ooka Shohei (1909-1988) is one of Japan's most important and influential writers and social critics. The Burdens of Survival is both a seminal English-language study of this preeminent literary figure and one of the first scholarly works to thoroughly examine the war literature of a major Japanese veteran-author. Drawing on Robert Jay Lifton's work on traumatic experience and survivor psychology, the book tells the illuminating story of Ooka's arduous journey that began with guilt-ridden survival as a prisoner of war in the Phillipines and culminated some twenty-five years later in the fruitful completion of survivor mission.". "This multidisciplinary study will be of interest to students of modern Japanese literature and those concerned with Japanese perspectives on the Pacific War, trauma studies, the application of psychological theory to literary analysis, and military history."--BOOK JACKET. CONTENTS Maps Introduction CHAPTER ONE Memoirs of a Burdened Survivor CHAPTER TWO Fires on the Plain CHAPTER THREE Lady Musashino and In the Shadow of Cherry Blossoms CHAPTER FOUR The Battle tor Leyte Island Conclusion LINGERING OBLIGATIONS APPENDIX: SELECTED WORKS BY ŌOKA SHŌHEI NOTES SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX