Will Bridges's Playing in the Shadows: Fictions of Race and Blackness in Postwar Japanese Literature is an important book. It is important first for the material the book explores, some of which is not well known, and to which Bridges adds new and arresting insights. This material includes work by such significant Japanese writers as Tanizaki Junichiro, Oe Kenzaburo, Nakagami Kenji, and Yamada Eimi, all of whom have engaged with race and Blackness (or, in Tanizaki's case, “shadows” of darkness) to a sometimes surprising degree. This engagement has affected and inspired their work and even their identities, both literary and societal. Playing in the Shadows allows us to see these well-known writers in a fresh and illuminating light.
Bridges's book also contains discussions of lesser known but extremely interesting material, especially a fascinating and revelatory chapter, “Genre Trouble,” in which he takes the notion of “genre” in a variety of...
