An Emissary of the Empire of Japan in Paradoxical Lands. Tōson Shimazaki in Argentina.
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.48162/rev.54.007Keywords:
Japanese travelers, Toson Shimazaki, Latin America, Japanese literatureAbstract
The present paper analyzes the travel diary of writer Shimazaki Tōson (1872-1943), writen after being dispatched to South America by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Empire of Japan in 1936. The diary, titled Junrei (Pilgrimage), and written in 1937, performs an aestheticization of the journey’s official objectives: in the first place, to undermine the negative image that the Empire had acquired within the international community due to its expansionism through Asia during the early 1930s; in the second place, to establish links with the Japanese community in Latin America so that it could become instrumental to the government’s expansionist entrerprises. The paper will provide evidence of such veiled objectives by offering specific examples, and it will analyze the complex standpoint that Shimazaki took in regards to the official discourse.
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