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Podcast: New Books in Literary Studies
Episode: Anne Sokolsky ed., "Bold Breaks: Japanese Women and Literary Narratives of Divorce" (U Hawaii Press, 2025)
Description: The various words for ādivorceā in Japaneseārien, enkiri, fÅ«fu wakare, rikonāreflect how the socially constructed institutions of marriage and family, along with their dissolutions, have been understood in Japanese history and jurisprudence. Employing a broad definition of divorce as the end of a romantic union sanctioned by law, social custom, or mutual agreement,Ā Bold Breaks: Japanese Women and Literary Narratives of DivorceĀ explores the shifting attitudes toward divorce in literature by women from the Heian (794ā1185) to Heisei (1989ā2019) periods.
The collection features writing by renowned authors Tamura Toshiko (1884ā1945), Uno Chiyo (1897ā1996), and Tsushima YÅ«ko (1947ā2016), who used divorce as a lite...