Over the past couple months, I’ve been leisurely making my way through 『可能性としての「在日」』 Kanosei toshite no ‘zainichi’ (’Zainichi’ as possibility), a collection of essays and speeches by Lee Hoesung (Japanese: Ri Kaisei), who in 1972 became the first ethnically Korean writer to win the Akutagawa Prize. It’s a fascinating read.
The earliest piece in the book comes from 1970, the latest from 2002. It’s particularly interesting to watch Lee’s position develop over the decades, from his decision to travel to South Korea in the early 1970s despite its still being under military dictatorship, to his decision to switch his legal citizenship from North to South Korea, to his enthusiastic support for Kim Dae-jung’s Sunshine Policy in the 1990s. In the 1970s, he seeks in Zainichi identity the possibility for a popular nationalism that preserves a critical distance from the governments of both North and South Korea; in the 2000s, he finds in it possibilities for a global coalition of minority cultures. Lee is keenly intelligent, honest, and constantly rethinking his own ethical responsibilities in response to the flows of power and history. He’s also not afraid to take his critics to task, often by name.
I’m also reading 「ムッシュ！Monsieur!」, the autobiography of Kamayatsu Hiroshi. Kamayatsu was born in Tokyo in 1939, the son of a Japanese-American jazz singer and a Japanese woman. In the late 1950s, he launched his musical career as a rockabilly and country-western singer. In the 1960s, he became the main creative force behind Group Sounds superstars The Spiders. In the 1970s, he remade himself yet again, this time as a brilliant New Music singer-songwriter, and he remains today a beloved elder statesman of Japanese rock. It’s an absorbing story, even if Kamayatsu refrains from spilling the real dirt: he could learn a trick or two from Lee Hoesung.
Finally, I’m just finishing up Nick Hornby’s first young adult novel, Slam! As usual, Hornby brilliantly captures the male protagonist, in this case a teenage skateboarder who finds himself stumbling into fatherhood. We see all of his vainglorious foibles, as well as his attempts to uphold something like honor. I don’t find it quite as compelling as, say, High Fidelity, but then again, I’m not really part of the target audience for this one.
