THE NEW SUN and HORIZON IS CALLING
First editions of both parts of this proto-graphic novel memoir, the reflections of an antifascist Japanese artist in the years leading up to World War II.
Very good plus overall.
Price: $750.00
THE NEW SUN and HORIZON IS CALLING
"The feeling of friendship in our cell was so complete that I thought to myself, perhaps this is a sample of the future world."
Evoking the high-contrast minimalism of Frans Masereel's wordless graphic novels and anticipating the raw emotions of Art Spiegelman's MAUS, THE NEW SUN and HORIZON IS CALLING present a powerful story of resistance. Taro Yashima — the pen name of Jun Iwamatsu — was an antifascist artist and activist in Japan in the 1930s, when speaking out against the government could result in a jail sentence. Indeed, the majority of THE NEW SUN is Yashima's reflection on his and his wife Mitsu's time as political prisoners, including the mental and physical tortures they endured.
Yashima was able to find humanity among his fellow prisoners and in his memories of his village friends; HORIZON IS CALLING features his continued hope for the future after his release from prison, even as Japan became increasingly militaristic. He and Mitsu eventually fled to the US, where the pair were hired by the government to create anti-war propaganda for a Japanese audience.
THE NEW SUN was also meant to function as anti-war literature, but for US readers. While many US books of the 1940s "presented the Japanese as an undifferentiated mass that mindlessly obeyed the dictates of their so-called god-emperor," Yashima offered a different perspective (Shibusawa, 264). THE NEW SUN, published as WWII raged on, was "meant to speed the war's end and to challenge American caricatures" of a homogenous Japanese people (Shibusawa, 258).
An important record of resistance in the still-developing format of the graphic novel — uncommon individually, and scarce as a set.
Read more: Naoko Shibusawa, "The Artist Belongs to the People: The Odyssey of Taro Yashima," Journal of Asian American Studies, vol. 8 no. 3.
The Object
New York: Henry Holt and Company, (1943), (1947). 8'' x 5.25''. Original grey cloth bindings. THE NEW SUN in original unclipped ($2.75) pictorial dust jacket, HORIZON IS CALLING in original price-clipped pictorial dust jacket. Illustrated throughout in black and white. 310; 276 pages. Dust jackets with some edgewear, spine of THE NEW SUN with some sunning. Bindings with mildly bumped spine ends; HORIZON IS CALLING with thin black lines to top and bottom of boards, most likely from former mylar sleeve. Clean and bright overall.
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