Japan's involvement in World War II and the Greater East Asia War provoked a range of reactions from its citizens. Pride, rage, sympathy, revengea single year of triumph and three of catastrophic loss forced the Japanese to question their country's presumption and its ability to shape history and the world. Falling to the will of the Allied powers further complicated Japan's postwar recovery, imprinting feelings of shame, resentment, doubt, and self-recrimination onto the national psyche. No writers better captured these fluctuations than a group of well known authors who risked recording their thoughts amid the bombings and fear of invasion. Nagai Kafu, Takami Jun, Ito Sei, Hirabayashi Taiko, Yamada Futaro, and the scholar Watanabe Kazuo wrote absorbing narratives, passionate polemics, and crystalline poems

Introduction: Wartime Diaries
1. The Day the War Began
2. The Birth of "Greater East Asia"
3. False Victories and Real Defeats
4. A Dismal New Year
5. On the Eve
6. The Jade Voice
7. The Days After
8. The Revival of Literature
9. Rejection of the War
10. Under the Occupation
Notes
Bibliography
Index