This book examines the literary and cultural output of the yakeato generation and the impact of their legacy on contemporary Japanese culture and society.

Roman Rosenbaum received his Ph.D. in Japanese Literature at the University of Sydney. He specialises in Postwar Japanese Literature and Popular Cultural Studies. In 2008 he received the Inoue Yasushi Award for best refereed journal article on Japanese literature in Australia. In 2010 he will spend a year as a Research Professor at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies (Nichibunken) to complete a monograph on the social activist Oda Makoto.

Yasuko Claremont is Senior Lecturer in Japanese Studies in the School of Languages and Cultures at the University of Sydney. She has been teaching modern Japanese literature, comparative literature and Japanese language at all levels. Recent publications include The Novels of Ôe Kenzaburô, 2009, Routledge and OEModernizing Japanese women through literary journals¹ in Hecate, Vol. 35 1/2 (2009), The University of Queensland Press.

Part I: Setting the stage for the yakeato generation 1. Introduction: Legacies of the Asia-Pacific War: The yakeato (the Burnt-Out Ruins) Generation Roman Rosenbaum 2. Current Postwar Discourse in Japan (Suzuki Sadami) Part II: Pre-yakeato: Provenance of a Generation To Come 3. Ohara Tomie and A Woman Called En Hiroko Kobayashi 4. The Legacy of Watanabe Kazuo Yasuko Claremont Part III: The Yakeato Cohort: Offspring of War 5. The Legacy of the yakeato Generation: Oda Makoto's Literary Social Criticism Roman Rosenbaum 6. A yakeato Poet: Irisawa Yasuo Yasuko Claremont 7. Ariyoshi Sawako and Sono Ayako: Young Women Writers of the Yakeato Generation Barbara Hartley Part IV: Post-yakeato: The Heritage of a Generation 8. Graphic Depictions of the Asia-Pacific War Roman Rosenbaum 9. Laughter and Tears: The Complex Narrative of Nosaka Akiyuki's Hotaru no haka Hiroko Cockerill 10. Japanese Poetry and the Legacies of War Leith Morton 11. Language and Body: Betsuyaku Minoru and the 'Small Theatre Movement' Shogekijo Undo in the 1960s Masahito Takayashiki 12. Kuroki Kazuo's Requiem for War Carol Hayes 13. Architecture in the Mono-no-nai jidai Peter Armstrong 14. Summation: Children of War Yasuko Claremont 15. Yakeato Research Bibliography