Abstract:

In post-war Okinawa literature, Okinawan writers have made attempts to fight against Japan’s national consciousness through their own works. Addressing these attempts to fight against Japan’s national consciousness is crucial to the interpretation of postwar Okinawa literature, and it can also provide valuable insights for enhancing the national consciousness of Chinese people, but this aspect has not yet attracted sufficient attention in the study of Okinawa literature. This paper analyzes postwar Okinawa literature from three dimensions: the Okinawan dialect, the Okinawan traditional culture, and the Okinawan war experiences and war memories in postwar Okinawa literature through thorough reading of the text. It is found that Okinawan writers let the Okinawan dialect, the Okinawan traditional culture, and the Okinawan war experience and war memory in Okinawa literature impact Okinawan people’s national identity of Japan, and this was an important attempt of their anti-Japanese national consciousness, which was an important attempt of Okinawan writers to free Okinawan people from the discriminatory status of the Japanese mainland and to establish their own autonomy in literature.

Key words: national consciousness, Okinawa Literature, Okinawan dialect, Okinawan traditional culture, war experience, war memory