Le Japon des romans

Editions du Pacifique, Paris, 2006

Bibliothèque municipale de Quimper, Quimper, 2007

The exhibition Le Japon des romans (The Japan of the Novel) is based upon the photographic series, Shosetsu no furusato (The Birthplace of the Novel) by Tadahiko Hayashi. This is a study of the greatest Japanese novelists through the prism of one of their famous works. The exhibition reveals these novelists’ visions of Japan’s history and society as the country was on the cusp of radical change.

Already famous for his series, Bunshi no jidai (The Age of the Literati), in which he photographed the most important literary figures in Japan, Hayashi went further into the world of these novelists with Shosetsu no furusato, photographing the setting of one of their famous works. The resulting photographic journey spans across the Japanese archipelago and reveals a ‘traditional’ Japan that is set to be radically transformed and modernised.

Le Japon des romans presents photographs inspired by five of the greatest Japanese writers of the twentieth century: 
• Osamu Dazai, Shayo (Setting Sun), 1947.
• Yasunari Kawabata, Izu no odoriko (The Dancing Girl of Izu), 1926.
• Yukio Mishima, Shiosai (The Sound of Waves), 1954.
• Junichiro Tanizaki, Tsuki to kyogen-shi (The Moon and the Kyogen Artist), 1950.
• Sakae Tsuboi, Nijushi no hitomi (Twenty-Four Eyes), 1952.

(Photographs by Tadahiko Hayashi)