Atsuko Ueda is Assistant Professor at Princeton University. Her areas of specialization are modern and contemporary Japanese literature.

"This is an important and groundbreaking study that should be of interest not only to specialists in Japanese modern literature but to scholars of literature generally. For specialists, the historically informed rereading of The Essence of the Novel brings an important debate to an English-speaking audience. Ueda also offers a detailed and well-researched analysis of several novels that have not been translated and are rarely discussed, such as The Characters of Modern Students. For nonspecialists, this is a fascinating case study of how the novel, which in a European context was a genre-defying style, becomes a genre-defining mode of writing in Japan and how a culture that has a nearly thousand-year tradition of ctional prose narratives encountered the Western novel and created literature as an academic subject." - Deborah Shamoon (Modern Philology)

• Contents Acknowledgmentsxxx Notes on Japanese Names and Termsxxx 1.Introduction1 2.The Genealogy of the Shosetsu: From Gesaku to "Shosetsu = Novel"000 3. The Main Constituents of the Shosetsu: Shosetsu shinzui's Criticism of Bakin and "Depoliticization"000 4.Constructing "Asia" and Imperial Longing000 5. Tosei shosei katagi: The "Social" Shosetsu000 6. Unraveling the Mechanism of Concealment: Historicizing Shosetsu shinzui000 Afterword000 Notes000 Glossary000 Works Cited000 Index

Atsuko Ueda is Assistant Professor at Princeton University. Her areas of specialization are modern and contemporary Japanese literature.

"This is an important and groundbreaking study that should be of interest not only to specialists in Japanese modern literature but to scholars of literature generally. For specialists, the historically informed rereading of The Essence of the Novel brings an important debate to an English-speaking audience. Ueda also offers a detailed and well-researched analysis of several novels that have not been translated and are rarely discussed, such as The Characters of Modern Students. For nonspecialists, this is a fascinating case study of how the novel, which in a European context was a genre-defying style, becomes a genre-defining mode of writing in Japan and how a culture that has a nearly thousand-year tradition of ctional prose narratives encountered the Western novel and created literature as an academic subject." - Deborah Shamoon (Modern Philology)

• Contents Acknowledgmentsxxx Notes on Japanese Names and Termsxxx 1.Introduction1 2.The Genealogy of the Shosetsu: From Gesaku to "Shosetsu = Novel"000 3. The Main Constituents of the Shosetsu: Shosetsu shinzui's Criticism of Bakin and "Depoliticization"000 4.Constructing "Asia" and Imperial Longing000 5. Tosei shosei katagi: The "Social" Shosetsu000 6. Unraveling the Mechanism of Concealment: Historicizing Shosetsu shinzui000 Afterword000 Notes000 Glossary000 Works Cited000 Index

Atsuko Ueda is Assistant Professor at Princeton University. Her areas of specialization are modern and contemporary Japanese literature.

"This is an important and groundbreaking study that should be of interest not only to specialists in Japanese modern literature but to scholars of literature generally. For specialists, the historically informed rereading of The Essence of the Novel brings an important debate to an English-speaking audience. Ueda also offers a detailed and well-researched analysis of several novels that have not been translated and are rarely discussed, such as The Characters of Modern Students. For nonspecialists, this is a fascinating case study of how the novel, which in a European context was a genre-defying style, becomes a genre-defining mode of writing in Japan and how a culture that has a nearly thousand-year tradition of ctional prose narratives encountered the Western novel and created literature as an academic subject." - Deborah Shamoon (Modern Philology)

• Contents Acknowledgmentsxxx Notes on Japanese Names and Termsxxx 1.Introduction1 2.The Genealogy of the Shosetsu: From Gesaku to "Shosetsu = Novel"000 3. The Main Constituents of the Shosetsu: Shosetsu shinzui's Criticism of Bakin and "Depoliticization"000 4.Constructing "Asia" and Imperial Longing000 5. Tosei shosei katagi: The "Social" Shosetsu000 6. Unraveling the Mechanism of Concealment: Historicizing Shosetsu shinzui000 Afterword000 Notes000 Glossary000 Works Cited000 Index