title: Becoming Modern Women: Love and Female Identity in Prewar Japanese Literature and Culture
author:  Michiko Suzuki 
description: "This book offers a new way of approaching Japanese women's writing of the inter-war period, yielding strikingly fresh perspectives that make an important contribution to both the fields of gender studies and Japanese literature." (Sarah Strong <i>Bates College</i>)<br /><br />"Suzuki's style is both accessible and engaging; those who are not familiar with prewar Japanese literature and culture will also enjoy her multilayered portrayal of how women experienced the modern notion of love. This book will appeal to researchers interested in the interrelation between gender, modernity, and an ever-elusive concept of love." (Mayako Murai)<br /><br />"Michiko Suzuki's remarkable new study, <i>Becoming Modern Women</i>, challenges established interpretations of work by three of Japan's most famous modern women writers . . . Suzuki not only draws critical attention to the work of women whose celebrated lives have often outshone their work but presents a provocative model for new directions in feminist scholarship on Japanese literature." (Jan Bardsley <i><i>Journal of Japanese Studies</i></i>)<br /><br />"Suzuki has pulled together a tremendous amount of information and documented it precisely and clearly . . . [T]his study is a solid work, and the bibliography and footnotes alone make it worth one's attention." (Susanna Fessler <i><i>Monumenta Nipponica</i></i>)<br /><br />"This meticulous, well-organized book interrogates the construction of modern Japanese female identity . . . Highly recommended." (<i>L.I. Winston</i>)<br /><br />"The most refreshing and fascinating aspect of the work is its attention to the significance of the life cycle in the construction of the modern notion of 'woman' . . . <i>Becoming Modern Women</i> enriches our understanding of gender norms in the prewar period.Craig Colbeck, <i>Social Science Japan Journal</i><br /><br />"The blend of theory, historical and literary analysis makes [<i>Becoming Modern Women</i>] immediately accessible while offering a wealth of information on the intellectual and literary movements in the era, much of it previously untapped in such depth. The book makes an important contribution to the growing field of Japanese women's studies and is all the more welcome for its focus on these important literary works, offering a significant addition to the material available in English in the field of Japanese women writers." (Helen Kilpatrick)<br /><br />"By taking the works of three important prewar women writersYoshiya Nobuko, Miyamoto Yuriko, and Okamoto Kanokoand placing them in the context of a discourse on 'love ideology,' Michiko Suzuki's book provides important insights into the complex relationship between gender, nation, and modernity in Japan." (Ronald Loftus <i>Willamette University</i>)
zlib_text: The fantastic in modern
  Japanese literature
  The fantastic brings out the repressed anxieties, fears and hopes of modern
  Japan. Susan J. Napier’s exploration of fantasy in literature, film and comics
  puts the dark side of Japanese society under the spotlight. She argues that the
  fantastic reveals the ambivalence felt by many Japanese toward the
  modernization, economic success and Westernization of Japan in the
  twentieth century. The bizarre creations of the fantasists produce radically
  different visions of contemporary Japan from those that stress Japan’s
  success story.
  Susan J. Napier brings under scrutiny a rich seam of writers, filmmakers
  and artists: many are discussed here in English for the first time; some are
  neglected by critics in Japan. Her hunting ground takes in both “high” and
  “popular” culture. Her discussion of fantasy women embraces the
  enchantresses created by Izumi Kyōka at the turn of the century and the
  grotesque and comic sex fantasies of recent science fiction wri