Our 2018 Maine Humanities Council ‘Let’s Talk About It’ series is

“Family and Self: Readings In Twentieth Century Japanese Fiction”

In Japan, with its strong legacy of Confucian values and traditional emphasis of group over the individual, the family plays an exceptionally important role. This series explores five novels— two authored by women and three by men—each engaged with issues of both family and self in a changing Japan, but from widely differing perspectives. The first book we will discuss, Enchi Fumiko’s The Waiting Years, was published in 1957 but is set in the Meiji Period (1868-1912) during the years of Japan’s rapid growth as a modern nation state.

The other four books are:

• The Makioka Sisters by Tanizaki Junichirô

• The Setting Sun by Dazai Osamu

• A Personal Matter by Nobel laureate Ôe Kenzaburô

• Good-bye Tsugumi by Yoshimoto Banana

All books in the series are available, free of charge, at our library.