The book centres around the topic of subjectivity and self-representation in contemporary Japanese literature and offers a new approach to the genre of shishsetsu (the I-novel).
It reassesses the works of Dazai Osamu, e Kenzabur, End Shsaku, Murakami Haruki, and of the translingual writers - Mizumura Minae, Hideo Levy, Tawada Yko - to expose the wide-ranging treatment of personal experiences, and the intricate relations between the characters, the narrator, and the writing persona.
In the context of world fiction and autobiography theories, the book investigates literary and linguistic challenges in expressing the self. The shishsetsu are explored as stories of constructing identities between cultures, languages, literary canons, and testimonies of untranslatability of the self.