Klappentext

"Equal parts literary analysis and social psychology, this subtle and profound study engages with a wide range of Japanese places and people to demonstrate the insoluble entanglement of suicide with the practice of writing."--Jordan Sand, author of Tokyo Vernacular: Common Spaces, Local Histories, Found Objects

"In this stunning book, Kirsten Cather traces the literary genre of self-written texts scripted before, and about, the suicides of some of Japan's most famous modern authors. Questioning the relationship between the act and the writing, and why and for whom such 'autothanatography' trends as so popular in Japan, Cather is masterful in the attention she gives this subject. Mapping the poetic places of suicide (Kegon Falls, Inokashira Park, Aokigahara Jukai, Mt. Mihara) and archiving a range of masterpieces penned at / for self-death (Akutagawa, Mishima, Etō Jun, Yamada Hanako), Scripting Suicide in Japan is as hauntingly beautiful as it is analytically profound."--Anne Allison, author of Precarious Japan
"This meticulously researched monograph presents a radical rethinking of the very limits of literature itself, showing us what it might mean to ethically engage with ambivalence, silence, and the ultimate unknown of death. It is a tour de force."--Christina Yi, author of Colonizing Language: Cultural Production and Language Politics in Modern Japan and Korea