Forty missives from a Kamakura hotel Cover Image

Čtyřicet psaní z kamakurského hotelu
Forty missives from a Kamakura hotel

Joe Hloucha’s Letters from an unknown (1923)

Author(s): Pavel Kořínek
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Czech Literature, Theory of Literature
Published by: AV ČR - Akademie věd České republiky - Ústav pro českou literaturu
Keywords: Joe Hloucha; Japan; japonérie; popular travelogue; popular literature

Summary/Abstract: This case study describes Hloucha’s novelistic experiment to find a new form for the popular japonérie novel, written in the late 1910s and early 1920s using authentic travel notes from his first trip to Japan in 1906 and other older texts. This genre experiment attempting to combine a popular travelogue exposition with the traditional devices and procedures of epistolary sentimental prose involving relationships was not well received by critics and readers, but it presents an interesting example of the author’s efforts to innovate the genre and reassert his own position in the rapidly growing ranks of Czech „Japan specialists“ at that time.

  • Issue Year: 71/2023
  • Issue No: 4
  • Page Range: 486-497
  • Page Count: 12
  • Language: Czech
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