Hitomi

Something to look out for

when it is translated into English, of course

Just 20, She Captures Altered Japan in a Debut Novel
Hitomi Kanehara's debut novel has become a prism of sorts for many Japanese to look, or try to, at their society. [New York Times: International]

Ms. Kanehara had never intended, she insists, to write about Japanese society; the personal, the heart, interests her. Indeed, her novel, "Hebi ni Piasu," which is available only in Japanese but may be translated into English as "Snakes and Earrings," is the intensely private story of a young woman, Rui, obsessed with altering her body by getting a large tattoo and a snakelike forked tongue.

Still, by simply depicting the world around her, Ms. Kanehara has produced a powerful portrait of this post-bubble generation and the themes that are identified with it. It is a world of "freeters," young Japanese surviving on part-time jobs and unconcerned with their future; of unsentimental sex and a profound inability to communicate verbally; a world in which a killing is viewed with amorality.

The institutions that built postwar Japan — the family, school and companies — are noticeable by their absence. In a nation known for its social cohesion, the characters have no interest in playing a role in society, but only in finding personal satisfaction among themselves. Unlike Japanese in, say, their 30's, the characters in the novel are not disillusioned at Japanese society, since they had few expectations to begin with.

"There are many people who don't expect anything from society," Ms. Kanehara says. "That's precisely why they are looking inward or to the people closest to them.

"I never knew the bubble era, so my way of looking at things can't help being different," she says. "Since I was born, I've never experienced a time of prosperity. Without my being aware, it's possible that my writing reflects the era."


Now playing: Peace And Love, from the album Mirrorball by Young, Neil (released 1995)