Transpacific Connections: Literary and Cultural Production by and about Latin American Nikkeijin

“This important volume offers a deeper understanding of the literary and cultural production by and about Nikkeijin. The chapters not only explore novels, short stories, poems and art but also a telenovela and are written by a group of intergenerational scholars. An essential book to those who want to understand the historical, literary, cultural, and social relations between Latin America and Japan in a way that is striking, unique, and academically robust.” — Araceli Tinajero, The City College of New York and the Graduate Center, USA.

“The collection of essays compiled in this book addresses the unique perspective of Nikkei communities without succumbing to orientalist notions of Japaneseness’, offering fresh insight into the diversity of Nikkei cultural representations, often exoticized in Western academic circles. The multidisciplinary nature of the book makes it an important reference for scholars and researchers in a variety of academic fields.” — Randy Muth, Kio University, Nara, Japan.

“These essays are themselves ukiyo-e, or ‘pictures of a floating world’: together they constitute a signal contribution to the emerging field of ‘Trans-Pacific Studies’. Presented by some of the field’s outstanding researchers, these perceptive analyses — foregrounding complex relations between Japan on the one hand and Mexico, Peru and Brazil on the other — offer virtual case studies in the manner in which transnational flows and intercultural identities have materialized in today’s global modernity.” — Eugenio Matibag, Iowa State University, lowa, USA.

"Transpacific Connections: Literary and Cultural Production by and about Latin American, Nikkeijin makes an important and timely contribution to the emerging field of Transpacific Studies. The collection offers insightful comparative analysis, a critically astute introductory essay, and original, wide-ranging, and erudite contributions. Written with meticulous research and deep expertise on cultural connections between Latin America and Asia, it represents a significant contribution to the field because of its sustained focus on the Japanese - Latin American cultural production through not only aesthetic form but also social phenomena such as immigration. It is a necessary book that allows readers to see in detail how the complex cultural identity of the Latin American Nikkeijin is constructed. This rigorous and sophisticated volume will be an invaluable resource for scholars in Latin American Studies, Comparative Literature, and Transpacific Studies." — Gorica Majstorovic, Ph.D., Professor of Spanish, Stockton University, Galloway, USA.