Did you know that a small alley once known as “Koibumi Yokocho” (\u201cLove Letter Alley\u201d) existed in Shibuya, Tokyo? In the years following Japan’s defeat in World War II, women visited this alley to have letters to American servicemen translated into English and written on their behalf. This unusual setting inspired Fumio Niwa’s novel Koibumi (Love Letters), which was adapted into a film in 1953 by the celebrated actress Kinuyo Tanaka in her directorial debut.<\/p>\n
What did these women wish to communicate? And how were their words translated, interpreted, and reshaped by the men who spoke and wrote on their behalf? Beginning with the history of postwar Shibuya, this talk explores the voices and expressions of women represented in the novel and the film. Through literature and cinema, we will consider how the memories of people who once inhabited this urban space may still be traced, even as the city itself has undergone dramatic transformation.<\/p>\n
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SAKASAI Akito is an Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the University of Tokyo. His research focuses on modern Japanese literature, particularly the literature and culture of the 1930s through the 1950s. He examines how experiences of colonialism, war, defeat, and occupation have been represented and remembered in literary works. He is the author of Charred Ruins\u2014A Discussion of Postwar Spaces (2018, in Japanese). His recent research focuses on modern and contemporary Japanese poetry and postwar literature of resistance.<\/p>\n