a diary of darkness the wartime diary of kiyosawa kiyoshi

Once the war began, Japanese writers, with extremely few exceptions, became Japanese first and men of letters second.’ Kiyosawa marvelled at the successful indoctrination of his colleagues: ‘The Japanese people have had faith in the war,’ he wrote in April 1944. According to Donald Keene, some of the Japanese writers ‘who expressed themselves so joyously’ on 8 December 1941 – the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor – probably ‘feared that unless they appeared enthusiastic they might fall under suspicion of harbouring dangerous thoughts, but most of the wartime comments have an unmistakable ring of sincerity. Slogans about the superiority of the Japanese people and their mission to bring the nations of the world ‘under one roof’ drew citizens of all kinds, however intellectual or unintellectual, into fervent support of the war effort. Kiyosawa, a journalist, was consistent in his criticism of Japan’s military Government throughout the Second World War, and never succumbed to its propaganda. Many Japanese of the war generation would have no trouble understanding the reasons for the fanfare. The photograph on the cover shows him unprepared for this cascade of compliments, sitting amiably in front of shelves of books, rumpled and smoking a pipe.

The translators assure us of Kiyosawa Kiyoshi’s ‘meticulous attention to detail, the self-revealing thoughtfulness of his reflections, and the acuity of his observation’. ‘A tribute to the human spirit,’ declares the blurb. ‘One of the most important and compelling documents of wartime Japan,’ the publisher informs us.

A diary of darkness the wartime diary of kiyosawa kiyoshi