A Sheep's Song

In this autobiography cultural critic, literary historian, novelist, poet and physician, Kato Shuichi reconstructs his spiritual and intellectual journey from the militarist era of prewar Japan to the dynamic postwar landscapes of Japan and Europe. Kato describes his youthful interest in the natural sciences as well as in Japanese and Western literatures - from the Man'yoshu to Akutagawa Ryunosuke, Baudelaire, Valery, and Proust. Turning to the rise of Japanese fascism in the late 1930s, he recalls his rebellion against the jingoistic political atmosphere of the time. The chapters on the war and its aftermath include experiences of Hiroshima shortly after the bombing and the often tragicomic encounters between the defeated Japanese nation and the American Occupation forces. Throughout, memories of his wide-ranging literary career and broad experiences in Europe as a student, traveller, and cultural observer are punctuated by his perspectives on the relation between imagination, art and politics.