Issue Details: First known date: 2017... 2017 A Place to Put These Butterflies : Finding Form in Zuihitsu
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'The 1,000-year-old Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon (Makura-no sōshi) is a definitive example of the genre of Japanese literature known as zuihitsu—literally, ‘as the brush flows’. An autobiographical account of the cloistered world of a lady-in-waiting at the Emperor’s court in tenth-century Japan, this ground-breaking text comprises a fragmented ‘miscellany’ of loosely associated ideas, personal essays and lists. Beyond its singular importance as a historical record of daily life which is almost microscopic in its detail, The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon endures to this day as a source of inspiration for writers, filmmakers and scholars interested in experimenting with narrative form. This paper offers a creative, scholarly examination of formal aspects of Shōnagon’s landmark zuihitsu in relation to my own creative nonfiction work, currently being undertaken as part of a PhD in creative writing at Griffith University. In particular, the fragmentation that is the Pillow Book’s defining feature, along with the associative linking techniques seen in many of the lists scattered throughout, have informed the structural interplay of the memoir material.'  (Publication abstract)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon TEXT Special Issue Website Series Ideas and Realities : Creative Writing in Asia Today no. 47 October Sanaz Fotouhi (editor), Sally Breen (editor), 2017 12948054 2017 periodical issue

    'This special edition of TEXT draws from the pool of participants from the Asia Pacific Writers & Translators’ (APWT) 9 th annual gathering in Guangzhou, China in November 2016. The issue compiles a selection of essays about the craft, pedagogy of creative writing and translation, alongside creative outputs in the form of fiction and personal essay. Inspired by the theme ‘Ideas and Realities: Creative Writing in Asia Today’, the conference brought together over 120 established and emerging practitioners and creative writing academics from the Asia Pacific region and beyond.' (Sanaz Fotouhi and Sally Breen)

    2017
Last amended 28 Aug 2024 12:00:35
https://textjournal.scholasticahq.com/article/25720-a-place-to-put-these-butterflies-finding-form-in-_zuihitsu_ A Place to Put These Butterflies : Finding Form in Zuihitsusmall AustLit logo TEXT Special Issue Website Series
X