This new 2nd edition of the Routledge Handbook of Modern Japanese Literature provides a comprehensive survey of the field of modern Japanese literature and gives readers an overview of how we study Japanese literature today.

Including sections on space and time, gender and sexuality, politics, war memory, national and colonial identities and the production and dissemination of literature, the Handbook examines the ways in which it is possible to read modern Japanese literature and situate it in relation to critical theory. It also features updated and brand-new chapters addressing the works of internationally renowned writers such as Futabatei Shimei and Murakami Haruki and defines the way writers produce literature in modern Japan, as well as how those works have been read and understood by different readers in different time periods.

Written by an international team of experts, the Handbook examines modes of literary production such as fiction, poetry, and critical essays as distinct forms of expression that nonetheless are closely interrelated and as such it will be a vital resource for students and scholars of Japanese Literature, literature in translation and modern and contemporary literature.