Page:Modern Japanese Novels and the West.pdf/37

 literature. For all the wealth of foreign novels available in Japanese translation, the Japanese not surprisingly still prefer works which touch directly on their own daily lives.

Japanese literature today in its main developments is rapidly becoming a branch of the modern literature of the world. It retains its identity as a branch because of the individuality of its long and persistent traditions. Most writers, if asked how their novels were distinguishable from those of their European contemporaries, would probably reply that it was in being written by Japanese. The Japaneseness, they would insist, is a quality more