YA literature and Japan

Ćošković, Irina and Butler, Catherine ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3540-5756 2024. YA literature and Japan. Mooney, Jennifer, Rhodes, Cristina, Duckels, Gabriel, O'Sullivan, Keith and Hunt, Peter, eds. Routledge Companion to Young Adult Literature, Routledge,

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Abstract

In Japan, the literary term ‘young adult’ (ヤングアダルト yangu adaruto) was first imported from English in the late 1970s but came to prominence only towards the turn of the millennium. At first, its range of application in Japan was broader than in the West, both generically and in terms of target readership. Over time, however, Japanese readers became familiar with the Western conception of YA literature, introduced through the work of foreign and emerging domestic authors, young adult imprints, newspaper reviews, and literary guides. In the 1980s, a malaise within Japanese children’s publishing catalysed a period of experimentation by writers and publishers alike, in which age categories were merged and new themes and topics explored, from family conflict and queer relationships to war and natural disasters. Not all such books were marketed as YA, but the YA label offered a home for literature that broached new topics and challenged social taboos. Meanwhile, other Japanese media and literary forms with their own established readership categories and conventions, such as manga and light novels, continue to inflect what YA can mean and do within the Japanese literary landscape.

Item Type:	Book Section
Status:	In Press
Schools:	English, Communication and Philosophy
Subjects:	P Language and Literature > PI Oriental languages and literatures P Language and Literature > PZ Childrens literature
Publisher:	Routledge
Last Modified:	30 May 2024 11:47
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/169238

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