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The Art Of Emptiness: Buddhist Nature In Picture Books Of Miyazawa Kenji's Donguri To Yamaneko (Wildcat And The Acorns), Helen Kilpatrick

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

Miyazawa Kenji (1896-1933), the author of Donguri to Yamaneko [3], is recognised as one of "the most imaginative spinner[s] of children's stories, of twentieth-century Japan" (Satô xvii). Moreover, Kenji, as he is commonly known, is probably Japan's most renowned Buddhist writer and his work is now taught in schools and universities. [4]He was writing at a time when Japan was undergoing rapid modernisation and much of his work, including Donguri, was created as a protest against the spiritual desolation associated with rampant industrialisation, commodification and consumerism. Donguri should be considered in this context as the story ultimately foregrounds a communion …