Images of Belief in Literature

Throughout history, religious expression has been an essential human activity, deeply influencing the development of cultures and civilizations. Today, even after centuries of scientific empiricism, the world’s major religions are as active as ever, continuing to speak profoundly to their believers’ self-conception and ways of living.

This book considers literary images of Japan created by David Mitchell, Kazuo Ishiguro, and Tan Twan Eng to examine the influence of Japanese imperialism and its legacy at a time when culture was appropriated as route to governmentality and violence justified as root to peace. Using David Mitchell’s The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, Tan Twang Eng’s The Garden of the Evening Mists and Kazuo Ishiguro’s work to examine Japanese militarists’ tactics of usurpation and how Japanese imperialism reached out to the grass-root public and turned into a fundamental belief in colonial invasion and imperial expansion, the book provides an in depth study of trauma, memory and war.