Girl Reading Girl in Japan

<p><em>Girl Reading Girl</em> provides the first overview of the cultural significance of girls and reading in modern and contemporary Japan with emphasis on the processes involved when girls read about other girls. </p><p>The collection examines the reading practices of real life girls from differing social backgrounds throughout the twentieth century while a number of chapters also consider how fictional girls read attention is given to the diverse cultural representations of the girl or <em>shôjo</em> who are the objects of the reading desires of Japan’s real life and fictional girls. These representations appear in various genres including prose fiction such as Yoshiya Nobuko’s <em>Flower Stories</em> and Takemoto Nobara’s <em>Kamikaze Girls</em> and manga such as Yoshida Akimi’s <em>The Cherry Orchard.</em> This volume presents the work of pioneering women scholars in the field of girl studies including translations of a ground-breaking essay by Honda Masuko on reading girls and Kawasaki Kenko’s response to prejudicial masculine critiques of best-selling novelist Yoshimoto Banana. Other topics range from the reception of <em>Anne of Green Gables </em>in Japan to girls who write and read male homoerotic narratives.</p>