Literary Interventions: Yamamoto Sanehiko’s Role in Sino-Japanese Literary Exchange

Abstract

In the interwar period, against a background of increasing tensions, a lively exchange developed between the Chinese and Japanese literary communities. A number of writers and cultural figures contributed to that mutually beneficial web of interactions, including literary luminar­ies such as Lu Xun and Tanizaki Jun’ichirō, and less celebrated figures such as the translator Kaji Wataru and the Shanghai-based bookstore owner, Uchiyama Kanzō, the latter two of whom are remembered largely for their roles in that exchange. Often skirting the periphery of discussions of the dialogue that developed between the two communi­ties during those years was Yamamoto Sanehiko, who contributed to this exchange in vital ways that helped to sustain and foster relations between Japanese and Chinese writers during that volatile period. Yamamoto, as writer and publisher and entrepreneur, contributed to exchange between the Chinese and Japanese literary communities in ways unparalleled among contemporary publishers.