2019: A Multifaceted Fukushima - Trauma and Memory

Fukushima  11.3.2011  -  11.3.2018
Source:  The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 17 | Issue 1 | Number 1 | Jan 01, 2019
Mit freundlicher Erlaubnis von Japan Focus


A Multifaceted Fukushima—Trauma and Memory in Ōnobu Pelican’s Kiruannya and U-ko
von  Barbara Geilhorn

Abstract
Focusing on Ōnobu Pelican’s play Kiruannya and U-ko-san (2011), this article analyzes documentary theater from the area afflicted by the triple disaster of March 11, 2011. Kiruannya and U-ko provides a rich tapestry of the multiple and often contradictory features of Fukushima Prefecture in the aftermath of the Fukushima calamity, weaving a dense fabric of fictional material, newspaper clippings, and reality. I show that Ōnobu’s play opposes national discourses of a spatially limited disaster, and that it offers keen insights into the highly ambivalent and emotional landscape of those residents of Northern Japan, whose homeland was turned into a disaster zone and/or radioactive wasteland after 3.11.

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