Abstract:
This thesis examines how minority identities are depicted in contemporary
autobiographical literature from the 1990’s to present. In this thesis, I focus my analysis on
minority literatures from Israel and Japan. In spite of the extreme rarity of the literary
comparison, I examine minorities of Israeli Arab and the second generation Japanese
Koreans. I explore how these minorities with different histories are represented, with shared
experience of oppression and violence, and analyze the phenomena or ramifications in
minority identity. By analyzing famous novelists of minority literature— Israeli Arab author,
Sayed Kashua and two Japanese Korean authors, Yi Yang-ji and Kazuki Kaneshiro—I
concentrate on pointing out the influences and outcomes of psychological and political
violence (Chapter I and II) to their minority identities. This comparison will enable a wider
perspectives regarding minorities in various societies, and an analysis of issues of relating to
minority as well as race identity in modern life.
This unique literary comparison attempts to examine cultural and political
similarities as well as differences in order to explore the phenomena of two countries with
different cultures but that share certain similarities, particularly in the articulation of their
minority literature. Although Israel and Japan differ very much in term of culture and history,
I still find significant similarities in the minority literature. The minorities I examined in
Hebrew and Japanese minor literature interact with violence in various ways each society. I
focused my examination especially on psychological and political violence in addition to
physical violence. My questions in researching this minority literature revolve around how
these minorities relate to these kinds of violence.
This thesis concentrates on presenting the ways that these the minority authors
address their own political identities, and the ways that social violence and oppression
influence their minority identities.
